


A Conspiracy of Ravens

by KairosImprimatur



Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Defenders (Marvel TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Dogs, F/M, Foggy Nelson Is a Good Bro, Grief/Mourning, No Matt Bashing, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, Plotty, Reporter Karen Page, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-03-19 06:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 33,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13698756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KairosImprimatur/pseuds/KairosImprimatur
Summary: In an attempt to keep from hurting anyone else, Frank lays down his weapons, lives quietly, and keeps his distance from everyone who cares about him.Karen finds a new story about him anyway.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place post-series/present day. Other Netflix characters to appear. More tags to be added. Rating may change.
> 
> It's gonna be a long night, folks.

_Time was ticking down to his next deployment -- yesterday they had been counting in months, now it was weeks -- but Frank would be home for Christmas, and he wanted to make it a special one. As soon as the kids were in bed, he found Maria in the kitchen and sidled up close as if he had a secret to tell her._

_She was scrubbing the countertop, but he immobilized her for the second that it took to plant a kiss on her cheek, then freed her again and murmured, “What if we finally get ‘em a dog?”_

_“Frank,” she groaned, pushing him away so she could rinse her sponge. “Not this again.”_

_“Aw come on. You love dogs. Didn’t we always say we were gonna get one?”_

_She pursed her lips, concentrating on the cleaning. “You do realize that if ‘we’ get a dog it’s actually going to be me taking care of it until the kids are old enough to pitch in?” She shook her head. “I don’t need more work right now.”_

_“Hey,” Frank protested. “I pitch in.”_

_“You do when you’re here, although, while we’re on the subject, you can empty the dishwasher instead of just standing there.” She heaved a sigh. “But then you get shipped out again and it’s me on my own trying to keep everything steady for you to come home to, assuming we’re that lucky.”_

_Frank opened the dishwasher and pulled out the top rack, which rattled loudly and got him a glare from Maria. Whenever she handled a home appliance, it was smooth and efficient and didn’t wake anyone up. Frank wasn’t a klutz, but she had more practice with these machines than he did. “You don’t want a pet for the kids you can just say so. Doesn’t always have to circle back on this same routine about my job.”_

_“I_ have _said so, and then a little while later you just bring it up again like you didn’t even hear me! I don’t know what you think life here is like when you’re gone, but I can assure you I’m not just taking baths and chatting with the neighbors about how much I miss you. There’s a lot I have to balance and I’m not ready for a dog on top of that--” she held up a hand and raised her voice as he tried to cut in-- “and it’s not because I’m some bitchy housewife who doesn’t want a pet for her kids!”_

_Most of the dishes were still in the rack. Frank didn’t trust himself to pick up a glass without crushing it in his hand, at the moment. “Alright, Chrissakes, forget about it.”_

_“No.” Maria straightened up holding a dish towel, which she flicked at him after using it to dry her hands. “I’m not going to forget about it. I hurt your feelings, right? Fight back.”_

_It always came down to this: he could either leave the room, or let her bruise his heart in a few more ways. He always chose the latter._

At the time, he would have said it was because marriage needs open communication, or because he wanted to make Maria happy and the easiest way to do that was to let her win the argument. Now he knew it was something much simpler. Leaving her side, even for a few minutes to cool down, meant going off by himself, and he couldn’t take the loneliness.

But the worst had come to pass, and there was no place in the world where he could go to be by Maria’s side, no pleas for a pet from Lisa and Frankie, no deployment to spend with his brothers in arms, and it turned out he could take it after all. He missed the torment of Maria’s implications that getting away from his responsibilities at home was a relief, he missed the guilt that struck him whenever he caught a current of fear beneath her anger, but he was alive and at home. He hoped she would forgive him.

That argument had taken place a few years before the end, but they had never made it to the right time to get a dog. Frank was grateful for that; it would have been one more life lost, or one duty holding him back from taking revenge. Max, the wounded guard dog he had taken from the Kitchen Irish, had come to him at the right time, in the right way; a family dog who had been loved by his children would have had no place in Frank’s war.

Max was gone too now, of course. Maybe he had ended up in the hands of better masters, but that was wishful thinking. Max had crossed paths with Frank, the harbinger of death. 

The bird of ill omen, Billy had called him once, when they were told to choose call signs from a list. All of the options were birds, and since Eagle wasn’t on the list, Frank had wanted to choose Hawk, but Billy insisted he had to be Raven, the “death bird”. Of course he had laughed as he said it, and of course Frank had shrugged and laughed along and accepted the moniker. Like all of his memories of Billy’s jokes, this one had taken on a much different meaning since his betrayal had come to light. So had the name.

Frank still wanted to lose himself in memories of Maria, but the ones that came to mind were always wrong. He wished they had never fought. He wished he could erase himself entirely from the scene in the kitchen, and imagine her living her life freely without the shadow of a raven cast over her.

All he could do now was keep the raven from visiting anyone else he cared about, even if it left him feeling trapped and listless. He remembered the reckless acts of compassion from Karen Page, the intensity that warned him away from her even as it drew them together. He had told her the secret of knowing who mattered most, and she had listened to him like she believed it, like he wasn’t mad with grief but just a guy who would know. The devil of it was that now Karen was the only reason he even realized he was lonely. 

He missed her. It hurt. He could live with that.


	2. A Skull and a Latte

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen hears of a disturbing recent crime. Foggy struggles with an ethical question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many thanks to everyone who's commented already! Subsequent chapters will probably come more slowly (I'm thinking a weekly updating schedule), but this is the one that begins to establish the plot so I wanted to get it out there so you knew what was in store. Please let me know what you think!

“Looks like your boy’s at it again, Page.”

Karen didn’t look up from her desk at the sound of Ellison’s voice. She leaned her head in one hand and picked up the memo in front of her with the other, waving it in his general direction. “A report comes in that mentions Frank Castle, and you come darkening my doorway,” she said. “Can’t have one without the other.”

“Now that’s not true at all,” he replied, coming further into the office. “I darken your doorway for many different reasons.”

He was right, but it didn’t change the fact that he and practically everyone else at the Bulletin had a few things to say to her as soon as the slightest rumor about Frank came up. “Did you read the same draft that I did? Because I have to say this is some of the most irresponsible journalism I have ever seen, and if you tell me we’re publishing this version of events I--”

“I don’t know if we’re publishing any version,” he cut in, holding up a hand to silence her. “First give me your take on it and then we’ll talk about building the story.”

Karen took a calming breath and nodded. “My take is that there’s no way this was Castle. It reads like someone wanted someone to blame and he was convenient, but the facts don’t point to him at all.”

Ellison shrugged. “Six dead and every one of them a criminal, that sounds fairly Punisher to me. And we have multiple survivors claiming they saw a gunman wearing a skull vest.”

“Criminals kill each other all the time. And anyone can paint a skull on a vest.” She tried not to show how much it troubled her. She was sure Frank had nothing to do with this, but killers using him as a scapegoat was a story that couldn’t end well.

“Why don’t you--” Ellison coughed nonchalantly-- “ask him?”

Karen gave him a glare that she knew he didn’t really deserve, considering she had been pacifying him with evasions and half-truths for months. “I keep telling you, I don’t have a direct line to Castle. Yes, I knew he was alive before the press did, yes, I’ve encountered him since then, but that’s a far cry from a reliable source.”

He tilted his head, skeptical as ever, but instead of disputing her version of events, he set down a page in front of her and tapped it. “Why don’t you ask _him_?”

She picked it up to take a closer look. “This is one of the witnesses? We’re in touch with him?”

“He’s at Metro-General. If you’re going I don’t want you going alone.”

Karen was already gathering her purse and jacket. “Then find me someone who can keep up, boss.”

Ellison elected himself, but by the time they reached the sidewalk he was complaining about how fast she was walking. “You’re not even from the city. If this is your normal pace, your youth and vigor is out of hand.”

“I walked faster than everyone at home too,” she informed him even as she slowed herself down. In truth, she did have an extra spring in her step today. A story on the horizon would do that to her, and this one had the additional incentive of involving Frank. It was bad news, sure, but at least it would give her an excuse to see him.

She had often considered asking to see him without bothering with an excuse, but the last few times they had talked, he had deflected her innocuous questions about what he was doing with his life these days, and she could take a hint. She didn’t even take it personally, exactly. He had his reasons, and she knew he still cared about her. He would be there for what was important, which was why he wouldn’t turn her down when she told him they needed to discuss a case.

Sometimes she felt like her life was finally looking up, but that wasn’t right. The stability she had gained from the Bulletin, and from the elimination of a few major threats, could hardly be counted a fair trade against all of the losses she had endured since moving to New York. But she felt more competent and more driven every time she plunged into another project. She had a purpose. She had a growing network of allies, since meeting Trish Walker at the NYPD. She had some closure, too, as much as she might wish that everything had turned out differently. Matt had, after all, died a hero, and she didn’t have to be the only one who knew about it. At long last, Foggy was making plans for a funeral, so she could say her final farewell and begin to look to the future.

And she could see Frank again. Matt’s funeral was important: he would be there.

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Foggy passed by the front doors of the Church of St. John of the Cross and went around the back to ring the bell of the rectory. He hadn’t really wanted to go through Matt’s church, knowing how painful the memories would be, but the face of Father Lantom, when he answered the door, was an emotional blow of the same order. Worse, in a way, because he wasn’t prepared for it. He screwed his face into a smile and said, “Thanks for meeting with me.”

“You drink lattes?” the old priest asked him, and ten minutes later they were in a downstairs kitchen, making easy conversation about hard topics. It was worlds away from the kind of intensive debating that work at HCB entailed, and even the efficiently phrased patter that he engaged in with his colleagues off the job, and Foggy realized with dismay that it had been ages since he had sat down with someone trustworthy and talked about his troubles without any pressure to fix them. It reminded him of Matt, again, but in a bittersweet way, and he welcomed it.

He took a sip of his latte, which, give it to Father Lantom, wasn’t half bad. “Matt didn’t have any family, but there are still a lot of people who will want to come to his funeral. If you don’t have the seating capacity, I’m not sure what to do. I really don’t want to have it anywhere else.”

Father Lantom nodded slowly. “This is Matthew’s church.”

“And some of his friends are…” Foggy exhaled. He had never been sure exactly how much Lantom knew, about Matt or about anything else. “There’ll be a lot of people with secrets. Some of them might not get along with each other.”

“You’re telling me fights will break out in the pews?”

Foggy winced. “No! No, not that. I just don’t want to -- I mean --” He stopped to think while Father Lantom waited patiently, cradling his cup in his hands. “Okay. So here’s the thing. You remember our friend Karen? She’s friends with one of our former clients, and she asked me if I thought it would be okay if she invited him to come to the funeral.” That had been a rough conversation, for both of them. They hadn’t come to any resolution, so bringing it here was all he could do. “The guy’s not technically a wanted man, for now, but he’s a killer. Pretty much a remorseless killer. I told her I didn’t think it would be respectful to bring him into a church, and, well, now I’m basically hoping you can tell me something that backs up my argument but also saves our friendship.”

There was a long pause. When Father Lantom spoke, he didn’t sound happy: “So the Punisher wants to pay his respects to the lawyer who failed him, huh?”

Floored, Foggy could only gape for a few seconds, and the first words he managed get out were no more than, “How...I never said…”

“You didn’t need to. I keep up with the news, Mr. Nelson.”

“Foggy,” he corrected faintly. He had too many people in his life calling him Mister. “Okay, yes, I’m talking about Frank Castle. He’s apparently got a new identity now. I don’t know the whole story with Karen, just that she’s convinced he’s no danger to anyone.”

Father Lantom raised an eyebrow. “And you’re not?”

“How could I be?” Foggy pushed a hand through his hair, which was shorter than he liked it and made him feel like a corporate tool. “I don’t think he would disrupt a church service, no. I don’t think he would hurt innocent people. But as far as I understand what you do here -- my family’s Methodist, I think in this respect it’s not that different -- murder isn’t okay. Murderers don’t get waved into funerals just because I don’t want to hurt Karen’s feelings.”

To his surprise, Lantom half-smiled at that, eyes unfocused as if he were using every sense but his sight. “Do you know, Matthew would come here with his...moral quandaries, and we would sit here, just like this, while I told him what I thought. He never seemed to run low on moral quandaries.” He sighed and then looked directly at Foggy, and his voice became firmer. “I may not have the answers you want, but there are two things I can tell you. First, sinners are the reason we have a Church. If I turn Frank Castle away for falling too far from God, I may as well turn the homeless away from our soup kitchen for being too hungry.”

Foggy didn’t try to analyze the theology of that reasoning, but somehow, the way it was delivered made him feel ashamed that he had even brought it up. He nodded unhappily. “What’s the second thing?”

“That the Church of St. John of the Cross will not be holding a funeral for Matthew Murdock.”

There was a jarring clatter of Foggy’s chair on the floor as he jerked back in shock. “What? But you said--!”

“Calm down, son.” Father Lantom stood up, taking the two empty cups and saucers with him to the sink. He raised his voice to keep talking while he was washing them. “This has nothing to do with your, ah, friend of a friend. The rites can be performed without the body of the deceased, but in these cases, sufficient proof of death is required.”

Foggy’s heart sank. He had never dreamed that this would be an issue. “What kind of proof would be enough? It’s been six months, and there was no way he could have survived Midland Circle.” 

The sound of the water splashing over the dishes undercut Father Lantom’s response. “That may be.” Finally he turned back around, drying his hands on a towel. “But I, personally, don’t feel certain that Matthew is not among the living. I’m sure you can see how that’s an obstacle to conducting a funeral for him.”

Foggy expected to be depressed and angry for the rest of the day. He had a dead friend to honor, and the only way to do it properly had just been closed off to him. But as he walked back to HCB, taking the long way to clear his head, he found a kind of peace inside himself. 

He didn’t believe there was any chance that Matt was alive. But it was good to know that someone did.


	3. Cold Blows the Wind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen gets to work. Her first source is a fool, her second is distant. She still can't let go of Matt.

“He was huge,” swore the man in the hospital bed. “Six-five, at least. Big scar on his cheek. Long hair. And he kept shouting, ‘I’m the Punisher, I’m the Punisher!’”

Karen scribbled a few words in her book, trying not to roll her eyes. “And did it seem at all strange to you at the time that a fugitive vigilante would announce himself to the entire room and then allow several victims to escape and spread the word?”

Beside her, Ellison stifled a chuckle. The patient looked disappointed; he had probably expected his story to dazzle them. “I got out ‘cos I was fast,” he protested. “And lucky. He fired at me a bunch of times, but he missed.”

Karen leaned back in her chair and raised an eyebrow at Ellison, knowing he would see the evidence without her needing to say it out loud. The physical description alone would have proven that it wasn’t Frank, but she was somewhat insulted on his behalf that anyone would believe the real Punisher could fire repeatedly at a single target and leave him with no worse than a grazed shoulder.

The patient wouldn’t tell them anything about himself or anyone else who had been involved in the firefight, which Karen had expected. She and Ellison found an otherwise empty waiting room and sat down with vending machine coffee, a sacrifice she was willing to make for the sake of the privacy the small room offered over the cafe downstairs. 

“I guess this was inevitable,” Karen ventured. “As soon as the underworld caught on, they were going to start playing Punisher with each other. Blame everything on a man who can’t be found and always has a motive, and they think they’ll just get away with it.”

“I take it your plan now is to not let them get away with it?” he said dryly.

She smiled and took a sip from her paper cup. “I’ll need more than this. It’s probably been happening for a while now.” A list of names was already compiling in her mind, people who might have heard something. Aside from the obvious, of course. “Used to know a nurse who worked here,” she mused. “This would have been a good place to start.”

“Maybe it’s still a good place to start. At least the witnesses in here won’t open fire on you for asking questions.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll play it safe.”

He leaned forward on his knees, holding his cup by its top, and turned a steady gaze on her. “Sounds like I’m being dismissed.”

She tried to sound casual. “You’ve got better things to do.”

“And your source won’t show if you’re not alone.” He didn’t wait for a confirmation or denial. “If you get the story, I don’t need to know the how and why, but past experience shows you have a funny definition of playing it safe. Find out what you can about skulls on vests, but if you actually see a skull on a vest, get out of there. I don’t care whose face it’s under. You get out of there.”

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They had graduated from flowers in the window to phone calls, but Frank was still reluctant to spend too much time in Karen’s apartment. He hadn’t invited her to his, a nondescript studio in an old but clean building halfway between David’s suburban neighborhood and the ghetto. He wasn’t sure he ever would. These days, his fears that her life was in danger had subsided somewhat, but Karen’s relentless pursuit of justice could endanger more than her life. If she was around Frank for too long, she might take up a burden she couldn’t easily lose. That fear was alive and well.

So when she asked if she could see him, his first question was whether it was important. 

“It’s not a social call, if that’s what you’re asking,” she replied. Her voice was dry, and he didn’t enjoy the thought that she was stung by his attitude, but he didn’t backpedal. She agreed to meet him at an industrial port in Queens, one which had a park bench incongruously looking out on one of the city’s worst waterfront views.

It was windy, and Frank saw Karen shivering on the bench and instantly regretted bringing her out here. “Hi,” she said in a small voice.

He didn’t sit down. “You want to go in the van?”

She looked back at the ominous black vehicle he had driven here, and laughed. “How about my car?” she countered, pointing toward a modest sedan parked nearby. Frank thought about her last car, the one he had totalled. This was probably an improvement, but it wouldn’t have the same sentimental value for her. 

He got into the passenger’s seat, and waited while she closed her door and straightened her windblown hair, then asked her, “You okay?”

“Yeah. I said so on the phone.” 

He didn’t say anything, and before long she gave in and answered the unspoken part of the question. “There’s been some snafu I thought you should know about,” she explained. “Or if you already know about it, maybe you can fill in some gaps for me.” 

The snafu didn’t directly involve her, which would have been good news, except that it involved him instead and, as usual, she had picked up the story. Gangsters wearing his trademark, killing each other under his name. “No,” he said when she had finished the tale. “This is the first I’m hearing about it.”

Karen looked faintly surprised. “Really?”

“I been keeping my head down, alright?” He drummed his fingers irritably on the car door. “I thought that’s what you, what everyone wanted me to do. I can’t keep track of what every asshole in this city is doing if I’m trying not to let them drag me back in.”

“But you can’t just ignore this. They’ll drag you back in without ever coming near you.”

She was right, and the urgency in her voice wasn’t unwarranted, but Frank didn’t know what kind of response she wanted. He tried to think of what he would do if Karen was taken out of the equation. It didn’t help. “Kill them all” just put him back in the vicious circle, where there would never be an after. 

Finally he leaned his head back and asked, “Can you get me anything on the copycats?” 

“Gang affiliations. Territories. Names of survivors.” Her fingers danced restively at her lips. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know yet. I, uh…” He looked at her squarely. “When I do know, I’m not gonna tell you, alright?”

Karen’s expression tightened, and for a moment he thought she was going to read him the riot act, but instead she gave a single, sharp nod. “You know what’s funny? Definitely not ha-ha funny?” She smiled wearily. “When we first heard about you, we thought you were a Daredevil copycat. A Devil Worshipper, they called them back then.”

Funny or not, he couldn’t help giving her a look of mock offense. “Psh.”

“You did turn out to be quite another thing altogether.” Her voice took on a nostalgic tone as she gazed through the windshield at the bleak grey river. “Speaking of Matt, um…”

“Funeral got a date yet?” Last time they had talked, she had mentioned that preparations were underway. There was a part of Frank that was still aflame with jealousy, to the point that it was hard to distinguish from rage, whenever Murdock’s name came up. The man had never had it easy, but he had protected his people, and Karen had loved him, and now his battle was over. If he had survived, things would have been complicated between them. He hadn’t, though, and Frank wasn’t going to let jealousy win over respect.

Karen looked down, so that her hair hid her face. “Not yet. Foggy talked to Father Lantom yesterday, and Father Lantom won’t do it because he thinks Matt might not be dead.”

Frank set a hard gaze on her and held it there, his hands flexing in his lap. “What do you think?” He gave it a slow count of three, then asked again. “Karen. What do you think?”

“I...I don’t know. I mean, no. It’s impossible. Isn’t it? If this were for the Bulletin I wouldn’t spend five seconds on it, and I can’t be credulous about something just because I want it to be true.” She lifted her head and hugged her midriff. “But I’ve met this priest, and he’s no schmuck either. Maybe he knows something we don’t. Crazy things used to happen around Matt all the time, why should this be any different?”

Unable to remain cold in the face of her distress, Frank reached over the gearshift and took her hand, and she squeezed it tightly without hesitation. “It ain’t impossible,” he offered. “Doesn’t mean you should start planning for it.”

“I just hate not knowing. I’ve been looking forward to this funeral, how sick is that, to look forward to a funeral? But I swear, a little bit of closure would make so much difference. God, can we just go get a coffee? This place is depressing.”

Frank looked around at the drab concrete and featureless parking lot. “Yeah? I thought it was kinda homey.” He buckled his seatbelt. “Just drop me off at my van later.”

She looked calmer once she had started driving, which was probably the real reason she had wanted to move. They talked about Murdock a little, and death, and whether Frank would come to the funeral if there was one. She warned that she wouldn’t be able to sit with him, but seemed relieved when he said he would come regardless.

Instead of finding somewhere indoors to order coffee, she went through a drive-thru, and informed Frank that this was on him, since he still owed her two dollars. 

He didn’t remember what she was referring to until he was thumbing through his wallet, and then he let out a deep, genuine laugh. “I thought that was charity, ma’am,” he objected even while handing her the cash so she could pass it through the window.

“I thought you were homeless, sir,” she retorted, but she smiled back at him, giving him her full attention while they idled at the pick-up window. “How are you doing, Frank? Really?”

“Good,” he said after just a second’s hesitation. “Good, y’know, best I could hope for.”

She nodded and reached out for the coffees, handing him one and setting the other in the driver’s side cup holder. “And, fake Punishers notwithstanding, there hasn’t been any trouble?”

“I told you I’m out. I don’t look for trouble.”

“So why did you think we had to meet out at the pier to talk? Was that just for old times’ sake?”

He knew what she wanted him to say: some habits are hard to break, he was being overcautious, next time they would speak over a meal or at her home like civilized people. Instead he kept silent until the question had hung in the air long enough to become rhetorical, and then he said, “Lemme know when you got anything more on this. I’ll come pick it up from you, if that’s easier.” He looked out the window, away from her. “And keep me in the loop about that funeral.”


	4. AKA Jocks vs. Nerds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy hires a contractor. Frank has an overdue talk with someone who...doesn't really want to be a contractor, tbh.

Foggy jumped when his cell rang; he kept it on silent for most numbers, and the privileged remainder hadn’t been calling much lately. Before answering he glanced at the clock on his desk, which told him who it was even though the number on the phone was unfamiliar. He had completely lost track of time. Again.

“Jessica, hi,” he said. “Are you here? I can come down to meet you.”

“Don’t bother,” came the response in her usual dry tone. “I know my way around this place. Which cell is yours?”

He told her, and a few minutes later she was striding in, giving the room a brief look of distaste before pulling up a chair opposite him. “Jesus, all these hotshot offices look the same. I thought yours would at least have stupid toys on the desk or something.”

“We here at Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz have a strict policy against displaying symptoms of a personality,” he explained. “Thanks for coming.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Hogarth and I want to work together but don’t want to speak or look at each other. You’re the best compromise.”

“I’m deeply flattered.” He even meant it, in a way. Jessica had never been friendly to him, exactly, but he knew he could trust her and he could tell it was mutual. “Hogarth wants me to take a new client. Rap sheet as long as the A-line, but he claims to have faced the Punisher and survived, so she thinks there’s a bigger case coming and we should get in on it early.”

“You’re buying that load of obvious bullshit?”

Foggy grinned. “I told her I wasn’t going to represent this guy unless I saw some hard evidence that his boogeyman was actually Frank Castle. She said I was the one who was responsible for finding evidence that it wasn’t.” He spread his hands at her. “You’re the best compromise.”

She didn’t return his smile. “Why not just go to your pal Karen? She’s in bed with him, right?” The words were immediately followed by a rare look of apologetic regret. “Shit, I don’t mean that literally.”

“Yeah, thanks for that mental image. And for knowing way more about Karen than I thought you would, although I guess that’s a trait I should get used to if I’m paying you for private investigation.” His eyes fell on the one personal item he did have on his desk, a small framed picture of himself, Matt, and Karen, and he sighed. “I want this taken care of before Karen hears about it. Castle nearly got her killed last time. A Castle doppelganger would be just as bad.”

Jessica raked a hand through her soot-black hair and shook her head. “You’re quick, Nelson, but she’s quicker. Sorry.”

Foggy’s heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”

“Page called up Trish yesterday and told her all about the Punisher clone rumors. They decided Trish is gonna bring it up on her show, get a ‘man on the street’ take to find out if there’s been any other sightings.” 

“Ughhh, Karen.” Foggy tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. It was a nice ceiling, actually, in keeping with the rest of the decor on this floor of the HCB office. He’d had plenty of opportunity to notice that already. “Where’s Matt when you need him?” he muttered, grateful that he could say that in front of Jessica.

Her voice was unusually compassionate. “Would he have been able to stop her?”

“No. But he would have known exactly how frustrating this is.” 

“Karen won’t actually be on the air, if that helps,” offered Jessica. “Trish is going to keep her name out of it.”

Foggy sat upright and nodded; it did help. “So can you do some digging? Prove it’s not Castle in the skull vest, so I don’t have to take on this trashcan client?”

He had half-hoped that she would linger to shoot the breeze a little, but she simply replied, “Yeah. I’ll be in touch,” and headed for the door. “Don’t forget to tune in for an exciting new episode of Trish Talk on Wednesday,” she added, and then he was alone again.

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It had been months since Frank had seen the Liebermans’ house in person, and he noticed a few changes. Small things, and mostly positive signs, like the freshly planted flower bed and the bicycles locked up by the back door. He knocked once and entered without waiting for a response. 

“That you, Frank?” called David from somewhere upstairs. “Come up.”

Frank didn’t know which door on the second floor was which, but when he reached the top of the stairs, one was wide open, and the sound of typing was coming from it. David, surrounded by computers and equipment that Frank couldn’t fathom the use for, barely glanced up at him when he stepped in. 

“You let anyone just waltz into your home?” Frank asked.

David made a flippant gesture at one of his monitors; it was split into four camera views, and the first two were on the front and back doors. “So, you need something?”

Frank looked around for somewhere to sit, and found a second swivel chair to drag over to David’s side. “Sounds like you got a bug up your ass today. Everything alright with you and Sarah?”

“Yeah, fine. She says hi. Actually no, she doesn’t.” He angled himself to face Frank more directly. “She says ‘Is Frank okay? Is he still in town? Why doesn’t he come over when we invite him?’ And I say, ‘I’m sure he would, dear, if only he weren’t such a gloomy, antisocial troglodyte.’”

Frank groaned and rubbed his temples. “I told you before, it’s better for your family if I’m not around. Last thing they want is a reminder of all the shit they went through last year, all the lies I had to tell them.” His voice dropped an octave. “They got you now. My work’s done here.”

That didn’t seem to do much for David’s mood. His eyes moved back to his screen for a moment, and he scrolled through an incomprehensible page of data before stating quietly, “You know what Zach’s been saying? He wants to be a Marine.”

“Fuck all,” breathed Frank.

“Quite a showstopper, huh? I don’t know what to tell him. If only I had a friend with the relevant experience to give him some perspective.” David leaned on his desk, head propped up in his hand. “Leo asked about you a couple times, too, but she convinced herself pretty early on that if you didn’t want to see us anymore, it was her own fault.”

Frank would have been sure that David was just trying to guilt him into accepting Sarah’s repeated dinner invitations, except that he knew Zach and Leo well enough to fully believe what David was reporting about both of them. “You oughta be kicking me out the door, you asshole. Someone messes with your kids like that, you don’t let him back in your house to see them again.”

Abruptly David stood up and paced in a circle around the study, a vivid reminder of his constant frayed nerves during their time in the basement hideout, despite his neatly trimmed beard and presentable clothing. “If you’re only going to set foot here to call in favors, Frank, then just get to the point. Everyone starts coming home around four. Wouldn’t want you getting cornered by three other people who give a shit about you.”

It wasn’t that the argument wasn’t worth pursuing, but Frank didn’t have the kinds of answers that David was looking for. He grunted in acquiescence and took a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolding it on the desk. “I need to find these people.”

“Oh, Christ.” David went back to his chair and picked up the paper. “Who are they and am I abetting their murders?”

“I just gotta talk to them. The ones I’m really after, I don’t have names for them yet.” He hesitated, then confided, “This ain’t some new crusade I cooked up to keep busy. I’m getting framed for someone else’s kills. I gotta put a stop to it.”

David’s expression softened somewhat. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess you do.” He wheeled his chair sideways, to one of the other computers. “It’ll take about a day to put together comprehensive profiles, but if you hang around for another ten minutes I can give you something to start off with.”

“Sure,” said Frank. “Thanks.”

In the quiet that followed as David entered the data to begin his search, Frank looked around the room, taking comfort in the family pictures on the walls and the harmless clutter among the computers. It didn’t look like a secret lab, or even like it was off-limits to the kids. David had changed while he was in hiding, there was no way around that, but it was clear he wasn’t struggling to fit back into his home.

“So what have you cooked up to keep busy?” David asked casually, scrolling through the data on his screen. “Find a new sledgehammer job?”

“Automotive.” Frank shrugged. “Small garage, flexible schedule. It’s alright.”

“And you spend the rest of your time, let me guess, lifting weights, strumming forlornly on your guitar, and avoiding all human contact?”

Frank rolled his eyes. His chair was too small; he turned it around to sit with his arms folded over its back. “Get off my case, Lieberman.” He got no response but a knowing look, so he added, “I go to a veterans’ support group, okay? The one Curtis runs. They meet twice a week and I’m always there. You happy?”

David paused in what he was doing and turned to face Frank, looking surprised. “Yeah, that’s...that’s great, man, good for you.” His tone was sincere, and he didn’t add any qualifiers before returning to his work. “I’m not trying to put a leash on you, Frank. I know you’re not a mad dog. Just seems like if you’re back in the land of the living, you ought to be getting something out of it. Go out and have a beer once in a while. Go...see a sports game, or whatever you jocks like to do.”

“I’m not a jock,” Frank informed him, affronted. Was that worse than hipster? He wasn’t sure.

“Maybe not now, but I can just imagine you in high school. Probably the captain of the football team. Tormenting nerds like me for being smarter than you.”

“Sure hope somebody was, if you were this much of a prick already.”

David gave him a sly grin and stretched in his chair, fingers interlocked over his head. “You know it. Okay, almost done here. The program just needs to run for a few minutes. You want a sandwich, jock?”

Frank couldn’t hold in his laugh any longer. “You’re goddamn right I want a sandwich, nerd.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jessica Jones S2 is so close it's killing me! She won't be a major presence in this story (mostly because I'm not that confident writing her), but she's absolutely one of my favorite canon characters. Whatever I write, it might soon get Jossed, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.


	5. Watch Over My Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Karen's turn for a talk with Matt's priest. Jessica begins work for Foggy, but...something's up. Is something up? It seems like maybe something is up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to pace this so that I don't run out of chapters and leave it hanging for too long, but I'm so impatient to get the next few out there! 
> 
> Major plot clues in this chapter, full reveal in the next one, so please feel free to speculate out loud. :)

Karen tried the church’s front door and found it unlocked; she knew that was customary for this time of day, but it still felt like the sign she had wanted, that she was welcome here in spite of everything. There was a special quality to the silence of the place, as if the noise and bustle of New York was held back by an invisible shield, and she understood why churches were traditionally considered sanctuaries. 

She hadn’t made an appointment and she wasn’t even sure how to find Father Lantom here, but if she didn’t end up seeing him, she could still use the opportunity for a few minutes of quiet reflection. She walked down the center aisle and slid into a pew, the same one where she had sat with Foggy and Matt for Grotto’s funeral. The faint aroma of incense filled her nose, and she fixed her eyes on the faint twinkle of the offertory candles, realizing gradually that she was drawn to their red glass holders. Had anyone ever told Matt that they looked like his glasses?

Barely a minute had passed when she heard the front door opening behind her. Karen stood up to greet the priest, but turned to see an unfamiliar woman there instead. 

“Oh,” said the stranger. “I didn’t realize anyone else was here. I was looking for Father Lantom?”

As they spoke, they crossed the short distance toward each other, meeting near the middle of the aisle. “So was I,” Karen replied. “But it’s not urgent, don’t let me get in your way.”

The woman looked concerned. She was about Karen’s age and almost as tall, but broad-shouldered and heavy, with kindness written on her face and a cheerfully patterned dress. “Were you praying for someone? They do daily rosary sessions here. Anyone can join.”

Karen flushed. “Oh, no, I’m -- I’m not even Catholic, I’m just here to -- I guess I was praying for someone, yeah.”

The big woman nodded. “Sometimes I just want to be alone to ask God to watch over my friend. He always seems like he’s in danger, but he only thinks about protecting me.”

Hearing such open-hearted good will swept Karen’s embarrassment away. She smiled ruefully. “I have a friend like that too.” If she asked God to watch over Frank, she wondered, would He listen?

Father Lantom’s voice came from the nave’s side door, rerouting her thoughts from the dark path they had been about to take. “Can I help you, ladies?”

“Hi, Father,” beamed Karen’s new friend. “I have the, um, delivery? It’s in my car?”

He came toward them, slow and dignified in his black clothing. “Thank you, Betsy. If you take it around the back, someone will be there to receive it.” He turned to Karen. “And are you here for the same reason, Miss Page?”

She blinked. “What? No, we didn’t come together.” She lifted a hand to wave to the other woman, who had nodded politely to them both and was headed toward the door that Father Lantom had come from. “It was nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too, Miss Page,” said Betsy.

Karen didn’t have the chance to fit in an introduction with her first name before Betsy was gone, so she turned back to Father Lantom and lowered her voice. “Foggy told me about how he met with you -- what you said -- and I was just wondering if you had a minute?”

He studied her face for a moment before answering. “Would you like to go to my office? When your friend came I had a latte for him, but I’m afraid the machine isn’t working properly today.”

“Thank you, but I’d prefer to stay in here, if that’s alright.” _Sanctuary,_ the back of her mind whispered. He nodded, and she sidestepped into the nearest pew. Father Lantom sat down beside her and said nothing, clearly waiting for her to explain her reasons for coming.

She took a deep breath. “You said you think Matt may still be alive. Why?”

“I believe in many things that can’t be proven, Miss Page. Since first meeting Matthew, I’ve seen him engaged with the extraordinary, time and again. It’s enough to leave anyone with reasonable doubt.”

“So you haven’t...seen anything?” she pressed. “Heard anything? You’re just going by a theory that he can dodge death because he’s extraordinary?”

Lantom looked up at the altar, or the crucifix hanging over it, before answering. “I know it’s caused some hardship for you and his other loved ones, that I refuse to hold his funeral here. I am sorry for that. If the time comes that I can verify that Matthew is no longer with us, I give you my word, he will have the proper rites and observances.”

Karen’s hopes had been so flimsy to begin with that it was barely even disappointing to let go of them. She bit her lip. “This is probably a stupid question…”

“I can all but guarantee I’ve heard stupider. Go on.”

“Okay, so, if Matt is dead, and he hasn’t had a funeral, does that change anything for the state of his soul?” It wasn’t her faith, but it had been Matt’s, and she couldn’t bear the thought of dismissing what he would have wanted. “Can he still, um, go to Heaven?”

His answer came without hesitation. “You don’t need to have any fear on that count.”

“Thank you,” said Karen, and then repeated, “Thank you. I can’t say I believe what you do, what Matt did, but I like to think he’s looking down on us.” She dropped her eyes to her lap, threading her fingers together. “Maybe he’s seeing my face for the first time.”

“That’s a good thought, isn’t it?” He smiled, which was something she hadn’t seen him doing too much. Every time she had met him, it had been funeral-related, and he had been accordingly somber. “You know you’re welcome here at any time, Miss Page. You don’t have to be a card-carrying believer to take comfort in the memory of your friend.”

Her reflex was to think about what he didn’t know about her, and how he would certainly take a different stance if he did. But Foggy had told her what Father Lantom had said about Frank, and it only made sense to apply it to herself as well. She expelled her guilt in a puff of breath and smiled back at him. “Sinners don’t get turned away, right? Even the front-page, terror of the town kind of sinners?”

His expression darkened again. “They don’t get written off, either. If you know any, I’d be glad to talk it out with them.”

Karen closed her eyes against the soft lights and ornate iconography around her. There was no chance that she could convince Frank to come here and get some counseling from a Catholic priest. It was enough, or it should be, that he would be allowed in for the funeral, if it ever happened. 

Before she left St. John of the Cross, she lit a candle, as she had every time she had come here. The red glass reminded her of Matt again, but when the flame on the wick came too close to her finger and burned her, she thought of Frank.

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Jessica’s technique for tracking criminals differed in a few significant ways from tracking unfaithful spouses, but when she began to witness signs of actual crime from the people she had been following, she knew she was getting closer.

It was dark by that time, but she hadn’t brought her camera along anyway. She wasn’t likely to see anyone in a Punisher vest until her three current targets had revealed a little more about where he was operating. They had been in a bar for hours, and she had been sitting nearby making the best of the situation as they covered various topics, all of them inane and useless to Jessica. Finally, she had seen another man approach their table and sit down to count a roll of bills that they slid over to him. She couldn’t hear what he said to them, but it made all three nod at each other and get up to leave just a few minutes later.

They took a route through the back alleys, so it was easy for Jessica to stay out of their sight, but harder to make sure that they remained in hers. These particular alleys were the kind strewn with trash between the dumpsters, and no windows to stream down any light -- truly private, because nobody would be there out of their own choice.

She scrambled up a fire escape when the trio stopped at an intersection to wait, and managed to situate herself almost directly above them, close enough to hear them complaining about the smell of the garbage and speculating that the ones they were waiting for wouldn’t even show.

Before long, though, three more strangers stepped cautiously into the intersection. Everyone faced each other with hands hovering at their hips, and one of the newcomers broke the silence by asking, “The big noise couldn’t join you tonight, huh?”

“Count yourself lucky,” said one of the men from the bar. “Punisher don’t come out just to talk.”

Jessica instantly took out her phone and set it to record, cursing herself for not being ready with it. She hadn’t expected the name to come up so quickly.

But before any new revelations came out, all six men were moving on, spurred by the sudden appearance of headlights in the alley crosswise from Jessica’s position. She cursed and checked for a path that would keep her concealed. The shadows were darkest on the roof across from her, but she wasn’t sure she could get there without a flying leap, which would mean a loud landing.

As she was scoping it out, something moved out of those shadows and then back into them. She registered that it was a distant human figure, parkouring along the buildings like she was, but couldn’t glean any details except that it seemed to be a fit young male.

And one more thing. He was wearing some kind of unusual, tight outfit, with a hat or a helmet that had two pointed protrusions in the front. The night made it colorless, but her subconscious mind instantly informed her that it would be red. 

She shook her head to clear out the preconceptions. “Pull yourself together, Jones,” she muttered to herself. “Not supposed to be ghost hunting, here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep... _that_ Betsy.


	6. Javelin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bagels for breakfast. Curry for lunch. Knuckle sandwich for dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Jessica Jones Day! I'm three episodes in; post any spoilers beyond that and I'm calling my lawyer.
> 
> I'm pretty sure that this story will still work with canon, set after The Punisher and before Jessica Jones S2, but I'm not going to stress if it doesn't. 
> 
> Oh, and I've decided that my chapters will be longer from now on. Yeah I'm still worried about running out of story, but I felt like there wasn't enough happening in each update.

In the early hours of the morning, the priory of St. John of the Cross was steeped in silence. The permanent residents were already out, tending to their own work, and the traffic on the surrounding streets was calm and intermittent before rush hour hit. Those who were awake were alone, for the most part, preparing for their own day instead of speaking to each other. 

A handful of alarm clocks in the neighborhood sounded, Matt’s among them. He turned it off and sat up in bed, keeping his senses within his immediate surroundings instead of using them to find out what was going on beyond this tiny room. His body still ached from the night before. He hadn’t been hurt in any way, but he was out of shape, and it was too soon to start climbing and running in pursuit of criminals.

He groaned and stretched, promising himself a long meditation session later. Not a night off, though. Too soon could very easily turn into too late.

Jessica’s proximity last night had thrown him off, too. He didn’t think she had seen him, but he had been forced to hang back while she continued on the heels of the gang members, so the excursion had shown him little except that his old ally -- and friend -- was after the same people that he was. That made everything much more complicated, not to mention emotional. What he wouldn’t have given to go say hello to Jessica, explain everything, ask her how everyone was doing. At least she was alive and well, though. 

After he had showered and dressed, he listened for Father Lantom and found him in his office, so he tapped on the ajar door and heard a prompt, “Come in.”

“Good morning, Father,” said Matt, closing the door behind him and moving forward in slow, cautious steps. He knew the priory well enough by now that he didn’t take his cane with him indoors, but the chair he was aiming for wasn’t always in the exact same place.

“Morning, Matthew.” He had been shuffling through some papers, but his computer was on as well. “We’ve got bagels in the kitchen.”

Matt found the chair and seated himself. “Thanks. I’ll go get one in a minute.” He didn’t try to stall before bringing up what he really wanted to talk about. “Karen was here last night, wasn’t she?”

Father Lantom’s voice was disapproving. “If you listened in, I assume you’ll be wanting to take confession later.”

“No,” Matt responded immediately. “I mean, I couldn’t help hearing when she came in, but I put my earbuds in right away to drown it out.” There had been a temptation, of course. Not the same as with Jessica; if anything, the idea of going to talk to Karen terrified him, but he had wanted so much to just listen to her voice and hear what she had to say. “I just, you know, hoped you could tell me how she’s doing.”

“She’s grieving,” said Father Lantom. His tone suggested that he couldn’t avoid being blunt about it. “She’s a tough woman, and she’ll pull through, but she misses her friend and she wants answers.”

Matt bowed his head, ashamed. “I’m sorry about all this. I’m sorry you had to lie for me.”

“Oh, I didn’t lie to Miss Page. Or your friend Foggy, for that matter.” That conversation had happened before Matt had come to St. John of the Cross, fortunately. He wasn’t sure he could handle many more close encounters. “I’ve kept your secret out of necessity. I pray it won’t be for much longer.”

“So do I.” He sat still for a moment, listening to the rest of the world waking up, then explained, “I know where to find the men who have been hunting me. Their organization is called Javelin. As soon as I expose them, it’ll be safe to tell the world I’m alive.”

Father Lantom let out an exasperated breath. “You went out last night, didn’t you? You told me plain as day that you weren’t in any shape to get back to your work, but you didn’t have the suit back in your hands for two hours before you were putting it on again.”

“I didn’t fight. I just have to track down their leaders, fast. I’m not going to be responsible for bringing a new gang into Hell’s Kitchen.”

“And you’re sure that you’re the reason they’re here?”

Without his cane to grip, Matt’s hands balled into fists and trembled in his lap. “They threatened my...Sister Maggie,” he said. “It’s me they want. They don’t know how to find me, so you’re okay, and Karen’s okay, and Foggy’s okay. But not for long.”

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

It took an inordinate amount of time to agree on what to eat, so Trish felt a measure of triumph when she finally completed the order and hung up the phone. “I got us each a lassi,” she called to Jessica, who had wandered away from the living room. “I’m sure you brought your own beverage as usual, but if you’ve never had one of these you have to try it.”

“Whatever,” said Jessica, emerging from the bathroom with a pill bottle in her hand. “Are you seriously taking fish oil? How new age-y can you get?”

Trish rolled her eyes. “I take a lot of supplements. I got that one just in case I turned out to be an Inhuman, but I didn’t want to waste the rest of the bottle and it turns out the health benefits aren’t bad, so I kept buying it. What were you doing in my medicine cabinet?”

“Making sure you weren’t into anything worse than attempting to give yourself superpowers based on a rumor from three years ago. Although come to think of it, I don’t know if there is actually anything worse than that.” Despite her tone, she looked relieved as she set the bottle down on the counter. 

Midway between annoyed and saddened, Trish gave her adoptive sister a flat look. “Like I would ever start doing something destructive to my body. And anyway, do you think I could slip it past you if I did?”

“No, because I always look in your medicine cabinet.” She didn’t say it like a challenge, but there was no apology there either. Jessica had some paranoia issues, sure. She acknowledged them, and she had good reason for them, and she wouldn’t try to hide them from Trish.

Just like Trish wouldn’t have tried to conceal her harebrained schemes to become a hero. It was who she was.

They sat down at the breakfast bar, Jessica casting a quick, unappreciative look at her phone before tossing it into her bag and ignoring it. “Lawyers,” she huffed. 

“That Foggy guy?” asked Trish. “How dare he try to contact you while you’re working for him. I think you should tell him what you saw, Jess.”

“His dead pal Daredevil? God, no. He’d just think I was drinking on the job.” She held up a splayed hand before Trish could comment. “And I wasn’t!”

Trish didn’t derail the discussion to point out that she hadn’t been about to make any such accusation. “So if Matt really is dead, who was wearing the horns? Do we have a fake Punisher _and_ a fake Daredevil?” In the months since Matt’s death, his role had been taken on briefly by one of his and Jessica’s other friends, Danny. He had only worn a replica of the costume once or twice, but all of them had contributed in some way to spreading the rumor that the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was still active, just to throw off any scent that would connect him to Matthew Murdock. But Jessica would have known if the man she had seen was Danny, even if she hadn’t recognized him.

Jessica blew out a frustrated breath. “I was hired to catch some asshole in the act of pretending to be Frank Castle. If someone wants me to catch some other asshole pretending to be Matt, they can call my office and have Malcolm talk me into it.”

“What about Karen?”

That got her a sharp look from Jessica. “What about Karen?”

Trish shrugged. “This is Daredevil-related, so I’m sure she’d like to be filled in on it. And maybe she knows something that she wouldn’t have thought to tell you earlier.”

Jessica looked uncomfortable. After a moment she brushed her hair back from her eyes and admitted, “I don’t really want to do that to her. There was something going on between them.”

“You mean they were--?” Trish thought back to her conversation with Karen while they had waited for news at the Hell’s Kitchen police station. Karen had described her friendship with Matt as “complicated,” which implied some kind of romantic tension that of course Trish hadn’t pressed her on. “I thought you said he was all about that other woman. Elektra?”

“Yeah, Karen and Matt weren’t screwing, but come on, Trish, you must have seen it on her. She was stupid in love with him.” 

If that was true -- and Trish agreed that it probably was -- Karen had been dealt a terrible hand. To love someone who loved another was hard enough, but now that he was gone, Matt must be haunting her relentlessly. Trish thought of Simpson, not because the history there at all resembled Karen’s, but because it still hurt. No need to wonder what kind of painful memories Jessica was fighting. Trish kept her tone even when she answered, “So you want to skip over a potential source of information just to spare her feelings? That’s…”

“Unprofessional?” Jessica suggested glumly.

“I was going to say, ‘oddly empathetic’. But okay. For now we’ll operate under the assumption that fake Daredevil is after fake Punisher. Could actually weave this into the show…” She paused to let her thoughts catch up to her words. “If we’re trying to convince people that the Punisher they’ve been hearing about isn’t the original, it might go over better to theorize that there’s a resurgence of vigilante copycats in general.”

Jessica narrowed her eyes. “Nobody’s seen the horns guy but me. You’re not getting my testimony on the air, you know that, right?”

“I don’t need to. Either it turns out to be nothing, or you won’t be the only one for long. We could get a stance established before the mass hysteria sets in.” 

“So much for not telling Karen.”

Trish opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again. Karen had already confirmed a meeting with her after Trish Talk brought the subject to the public; there was no way to talk around the Daredevil aspect if that was what would be on the show. “I think she’ll understand,” she said. “She’s...one of us.” 

There was no need to explain what she meant by that to Jessica, who looked skeptical but not affronted. “She’s a reporter,” she countered. “Before you know it she’ll be banging on your door with a list of questions on how you feel about the local superheroes.”

“Don’t be--” Trish was interrupted by a knock at the door. She stared toward it for a long moment, then back at Jessica, who gave her an innocent shrug. Trish raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on?”

Jessica snorted a laugh. “You ordered Indian food.”

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Frank kicked away a fallen enemy’s arm and advanced slowly on the last one standing. They were in the basement of an abandoned building and there was nowhere to go but up the one staircase against the far wall, so Frank fired a shot that way to show the man that he wouldn’t make it. By the time he realized he was out of options and turned to draw, Frank was too close to give him time to aim, and in another second he was disarmed and making frantic promises in a bid to save his life.

It was pathetic, but Frank had expected nothing else after the weak performance that the others had put up. He grabbed the lowlife by the throat and slammed him into the wall, making soft sounds to shush his babbling. “Take it easy, Paul. It’s Paul, right? You’re gonna walk outta here, Paul. I’ma ask you a couple questions, you’re gonna answer, and then you’re gonna walk free and stay free until I find out you told me a lie or you pulled some shit I gotta clean up. You got that, yeah?”

Paul nodded, as much as he could with Frank’s hand at his neck. Frank lessened the pressure enough to let him breathe and speak comfortably. “Alright, Paul. You know who I’m looking for, don’t you? Where is he?”

“Which one?” the man choked out. Frank rolled his eyes and raised his gun to Paul’s temple, causing his next words to come out in a panicked shriek. “There’s more than one! Okay okay right now his name is Russell Blagg, but if you kill him they’ll just hire another guy to replace him!”

Frank lowered the gun a few inches. “Who’ll hire another guy?”

“I don’t know. _Jesus Christ I don’t know!_ Russell’s the only one who’s talked to them, the rest of us ain’t even on the same payroll! I can tell you where Russell’s gonna be, that’s all I got.”

“Come on, Paul, that ain’t all you got.” It had been easy enough to intimidate this wretch, but Frank knew he had to keep pressing if he wanted answers he could use. “What were you doing here tonight? Who were you after?”

Paul swallowed a few times, his wide eyes tracking to the side to look for Frank’s gun. “They’re called Javelin. Boss wants ‘em gone but we’re not s’posed to kill ‘em yet. ‘Cept Russell, he’s the one takes ‘em out all at once.”

Frank grimaced. According to Karen, there were still super-powered individuals active in the area, but with Daredevil dead and Frank himself staying out of the game, of course new gangs were moving in. New gangs with stupid names. “What’s this Javelin want?”

“I don’t know.” Paul winced before Frank even moved to threaten him again. “I mean it’s gotta be they caused some kinda trouble for our side. None of ‘em are from around here. They all moved in at once. I don’t think it’s a gang, I think it’s a cult.”

‘Javelin’ did sound more like a cult than a gang. “Alright,” said Frank, ignoring the huge sigh of relief from the trembling criminal. “Where’s Russell gonna be, Paul?”

After he got the information he needed, he knocked Paul unconscious with a punch to the side of the head, then spent a minute shaking the pain out of his hand. He had aimed it properly, exerting the right amount of force, but he had taken care to leave everyone else alive too, and some had required more than one hit. Hand-to-hand was tricky, and exhausting, when you were the only one playing by that rule.

All around the bare concrete floor, the gang members lay in sad little heaps, like a low-stakes battlefield. Most of them had a gun or two nearby, or still on their person. Frank didn’t need or want their weapons, but he didn’t want them to have them either, so he would have to do some collecting and disposal. He scowled, thinking about their worthless lives and all the innocent people they were likely to hurt once they came to. Nothing about this felt right. He was wearing the skull on his chest; he needed it to show them who he was, and that he was serious, but he hadn’t come here for revenge. He didn’t even have proof of their crimes.

With any luck, Karen wouldn’t find out about this, but he wished he knew what she would think if she did. Was this what she had wanted? Putting a stop to the imitators without killing them? Or would she wonder how he could find out about two new active gangs in Hell’s Kitchen and not take them down?

He had thought once that if Karen was safe -- Karen, and the Liebermans, and Curtis -- he would be at peace to go live out whatever life was left to him. But when he pictured Karen’s sky-blue eyes, there was no peace there. She was safe, but she wasn’t happy. None of them were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, here's Matt! We'll be seeing more of him, since apparently I can't stop adding new POVs.
> 
> Trish and her fish oil were a reference to Agents of SHIELD S2/3. Won't affect the plot but I like getting my MCU references on.


	7. Playing Pirates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank wants answers. Matt wants some exercise. Karen wants a dog.

She wasn’t expecting him. He hadn’t called first, and she hadn’t put the roses in her window. It was past ten at night, and Karen had been thinking about getting ready for bed when there was a light rapping at her door.

That alone was enough to worry her, but when she saw it was Frank, her heart began hammering in her chest. “What is it?” she asked instantly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I was, uh, in the neighborhood. Thought I’d check up on you. Don’t like the way this shit with the phonies looks.” He made no move to come in. Karen wanted to be glad that he had come to see her without an emergency to prompt him, but his hunched stance and the creases around his eyes just made her think this was a slower, more subtle kind of emergency.

She nodded. “Well, I don’t like it either, but I’m fine, if that’s all you wanted to know.” There was a pause, as if both of them had forgotten their lines, and then she said, “Come in here. Sit down.” She wondered what he thought about seeing her in her sweatpants and spaghetti strap top. This was new territory.

He entered, but didn’t sit, choosing instead to walk a circle through her living room that ended in front of her, his eyes downcast. She offered him a beer, then coffee, then anything, and he refused each time. Finally he looked at her and said, “My son always wanted to be a Marine when he grew up. Anyone asked him, it was the same answer every goddamn time, he was gonna join the Marines, be a soldier like daddy. Kept me up at night, thinking about him in a war zone one day, but shit, I was proud, y’know? That’s my boy. Couldn’t ever try to talk him out of it.”

Karen crossed her arms tight against her ribs. Instead of trying to find a response, she looked him in the eye, silently indicating that he should go on.

He did: “Now Zach wants to be a Marine. That kinda kid, y’know, they don’t get it. They join ‘cause they wanna fight, they wanna be heroes, hell, that’s why I joined. Maybe there ain’t any recruits who don’t start there. And us who’ve been to the other side, we don’t do a damn thing to straighten ‘em out before it’s too late.”

A few beats passed before Karen asked softly, “Who’s Zach?”

Frank blinked. “Oh, right, uh. David Lieberman’s boy. He’s got his family all back together, I think I told you.”

He had told her, as part of a general summary of what had happened after he left the elevator, but she hadn’t known that he was close enough to the family to have heard what one of the children wanted to be when he grew up. It gave her a pang to think that there was yet another part of his life that she knew nothing about, but she only nodded in response. She moved into the living room, coaxing him into following with a meaningful gesture of her head, and took the armchair so that he wouldn’t have to decide if he should sit next to her.

To her relief, he seated himself without comment, and kept talking. “Whenever I started having doubts, when shit started going down in the unit, I told myself I’d still done some good by putting my kids in the world. That was my true purpose, right? Reason I’m here.” He leaned forward with his hands rubbing at each other between his knees. “Now I know, yeah. If there’s a reason I’m here it’s...at least if I do my job right, no one else has to do it.”

“Frank,” Karen murmured. She knew she didn’t have to find anything else to say; her role here now was to listen, to let him speak the truth to someone who could bear to hear it. It still made her want to cry, but she had built up a tolerance for the pain. Every time she saw him, every time she even thought about him, it was a little bit easier.

“These copycats, they still think there’s some kinda glory in it, shit, they think there’s a prize somewhere under the bodies. Just more boys itching to get in a fight. Dressed up playing Punisher.” He shook his head and looked up at her. “I can’t make sense of it, Karen. Why’s anyone want to be like me?”

If she had been wondering why he had come, now she knew: it was to ask her that question. She understood why he wanted to know, and why he couldn’t find the answer himself, but she wasn’t sure about why he thought she would. She had to give it a try, though. “Most people, when the world turns on us, we can’t do anything. We just watch it happen, wish things were different. But you take action. People envy that, even if they don’t like the action you take. They don’t see what it costs you.”

He stared silently forward for a moment, not quite nodding, but showing a kind of comprehension on his face. His voice was full of thorns and gravel when he asked, “You said once I belong in prison, you still think that?”

“No,” Karen replied, not needing to consider it first.

“Why not?”

“Blame it on my bleeding heart, but I value human life too much to lock you in a room full of hardened criminals.”

Frank gave her a sharp look. “You think I’d get killed?”

She returned an even gaze. “Not at all.”

After a moment he shook his head, chuckling, and some of the tension seemed to escape from his shoulders. It was maybe an odd way to get him to relax, but Karen would take what she could get. She pulled her bare feet up on the chair and pushed her face into her sleeve to hide a yawn. Loving Frank might hurt less than it used to, but it was never going to be a bed of roses.

“Be a lot easier on me if you gave up chasing the story,” he stated, breaking her out of a muddled reverie.

What had she just been thinking about? Frank hurting her? Frank being able to relax in her presence? She pushed it out of her head so she could answer him. “I thought we agreed not to tell each other what we were going to do about this.”

Of course that hadn’t exactly been what they agreed, but he didn’t fight her on it, just looked at her with that worried tilt to his eyebrows. “Yeah, but c’mon, Karen, I know you’re still chasing the story.” 

“I am,” she said mildly. “But while we’re on the subject, it would be a lot easier on me if I ever knew where you were.”

Frank rolled his head back, looking caged and worn out. “Yeah, I guess it would.” After a second he exhaled and pushed himself up from the couch. “I should go. I don’t know what I’m doing, bothering you this late at night. Just be safe, okay? Don’t get in over your head.”

“Same to you.” They would probably never stop saying that to each other, she reflected. They would probably never start listening, either. 

Karen saw him out with no more than a soft assurance that he hadn’t been bothering her, and he could come back any time he wanted. He thanked her brusquely, but apologized anyway and left without having touched her at all during his visit.

She practically fell into bed, sleep descending at high speed, but the exhaustion itself was enough to remind her of the thought that had escaped her earlier: loving Frank was hard work. With the last of her energy, her eyes snapped open. _Loving Frank…?_

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

“...If you believe you’ve sighted a vigilante, particularly those known as Daredevil or the Punisher, or if you have any information or speculation you would like to share, we’re waiting for your calls. Again, you’re listening to Trish Talk on WNEX, and the lines are open.”

Matt switched off the radio as soon as the show had ended. He wished he had something to punch, but the priory at St. John of the Cross wasn’t built with anyone’s physical training in mind. For a moment he debated going to find Father Lantom, just to have someone who could talk through the problem with him. He was a busy man, though, who had already sacrificed too much of his time as Matt’s only source of companionship.

It was broad daylight, but sometimes the risk was worth it: Matt decided to take a walk. If by some chance there was someone he knew out in the neighborhood, he would just have to recognize them before they saw him. He put on his glasses, unfolded his cane, and opened up his senses.

Trish had been discussing recent appearances of the Punisher, but with a grain of salt that Matt had noticed was characteristic for her, since he had begun regularly listening to her show. She had urged her listeners to consider that Frank Castle was dead, and that the recent murders were the work of a copycat killer -- and then she had drawn a comparison with recent sightings of Daredevil, which also couldn’t be confirmed. She was vague enough to give Matt hope that it was Jessica who had seen him after all, and nobody else. It was still more than he wanted, but at least she would be smart about it, unlike a stranger.

Further along in the show, Trish had opined that law enforcement would soon put the Castle imitator behind bars. It was a marked difference from the alarmist tone that most other news media liked to take, which Matt appreciated even while he wasn’t buying it for a second.

The night before, he had been searching for members of Javelin, and found instead their rivals. Securing a hiding spot on the floor above them, he had stayed to listen without getting involved, but now he knew: Frank Castle was anything but dead, and nobody would have an easy time getting him behind bars, law enforcement least of all.

It was a comfortably warm day, with a gentle breeze carrying the scent from those trees along the sidewalk which had started to bloom. Matt realized he was headed toward Fogwell’s Gym, but instead of changing direction, he picked up his pace. He hadn’t been back there in a long time, and it would be good to find out if it was in use, or if he could still get in.

He had two days before Castle was supposed to meet up with Russell Blagg, whoever he was. If there was a fight coming, two days wouldn’t amount to much training, but it would have to do.

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Karen had to sign in at the WNEX reception desk, as she had the last time she had been here, but as she wasn’t speaking this time, there was no other red tape that she had to go through to get to the Trish Talk meeting room. She was given a guest pass and pointed in the right direction, and the station was large and busy enough that nobody recognized her or asked if she would be speaking on one of the shows.

Trish and Jessica were both waiting for her, looking respectively concerned and cynical while somehow appearing to make them look like the exact same expression. Trish stood up and took her hand, saying, “It’s really good to see you again. I know this was short notice; I hope we didn’t take you away from anything.”

Karen affirmed that she wasn’t on a standard 9 to 5 schedule, and sat down at the table next to Trish and across from Jessica. Actually, Trish’s call had taken her away from the animal shelter, but she didn’t want to talk about that. It was the third time she had followed an impulse to go and pet a few dogs, and if she kept it up she was sure she would end up falling in love with one and fail to talk herself out of bringing it home. That wouldn’t be so bad -- God knew she could use the company -- but she still wasn’t sure that her life was stable enough for a pet. If she found herself kidnapped again she didn’t want to be worrying about her dog while she was trying to escape.

“We have four different callers lined up to come in,” said Trish. “After the screening process, these are the ones who we thought were most likely to have legitimate information. I’ll start out by explaining who we are and what we’re looking for to each one, but once we hear their stories you can ask whatever questions you like. You’re the one who can verify if they’ve seen the real Punisher or Daredevil.”

Karen bit back a rejoinder. They had already discussed the inclusion of Daredevil in Trish’s call for eyewitnesses, and Karen had already said her piece about Matt being dead, and his memory deserving of respect and privacy. Anyway, all she would have to do was listen to people who, at most, had seen someone else in a red costume.

Jessica stood up and moved down to the far end of the table. “Pretend I’m not here. Unless someone gets cheeky and you want them tossed out.”

The first guest was a woman their own age who told a story that sounded well-rehearsed: she had been walking through “a bad part of town” and seen six or seven “scary-looking guys” suddenly draw guns on another man, who “mowed them all down like weeds.” 

Karen asked for a physical description and got one so hazy it was meaningless, then asked for details about the circumstances and got answers that could have been picked out of a hat. She let her irritation into her voice to ask, “Did you go to the police to inform them that you were witness to a crime, or were you saving this just on the off chance that Trish Talk would be asking listeners to call in with stories about the Punisher?”

The woman froze for a second, then turned a nervous but sappy smile on Trish. “ _Big_ fan,” she said.

“Oh, Jesus,” Jessica snapped, the first time she had spoken since the big fan had come in. “Get out of here. She’s not signing your Patsy poster, okay? Go home.” She kept glaring until the three of them were the only ones left in the room. “Sorry, Karen, apparently our screening sucks.”

The next interview was just as easily debunked, but the third was with a hardened, muscular man in his thirties whose frayed jacket and jeans looked like they were probably the best clothes he owned. He was quiet for as long as it took Trish to do her standard introduction, and then he said his piece quickly and urgently: “My lil’ bro got mixed up in some shit, started hangin’ with these dealers, then one day he just gone. Word gets around, right? Mothafucka wearin’ a pirate flag for a shirt killed him.”

Karen and Trish glanced at each other, and then both of them looked down the table at Jessica, who was silent and intent on the guest. “Go on,” said Karen.

“I can’t go to the cops, right? You get that?” He waited for their nods. “I wanna see justice for my brotha, you know what I’m sayin’? But me up against this crazy mofo, that ain’t gonna happen. So I start askin’ around, seein’ who got the fire to take him out.” His face contorted in anger. “They tells me, someone already took him out. And then they says, we got another pirate flag sumbitch shootin’ up our people. Now everyone’s askin’ each other, who the real Punisher? Shit, you know what I say? There ain’t no real Punisher. But my little bro, he was real. So I’m gonna tell you everythin’ I know ‘bout this new sonnovabitch, and you gonna get the NYPD to do some good for a change. That a deal?”

Karen’s heart was hammering as they made the deal. The man, who would only give his name as Burl, seemed to have reached his limit on how much would reveal in this environment, but he was serious about making arrangements for a second meeting with Karen. “Long as it ain’t public,” he added. “Anyone see a man like me with a girl like you, they know some shit’s goin’ down.”

Trish spoke before Karen could: “I’m sorry, sir, but Miss Page is absolutely not going to be alone with you behind closed doors.”

“I don’t need no doors, I just gotta stay clear o’ snitches, you know what I’m sayin’?”

Jessica and Trish both started to talk at once, and Burl threw his hands up and pushed his chair back as if he were about to leave. Karen cleared her throat loudly. “I know where we can go. It’s outside, and nobody will see us. Jessica, can you join us?”

In the end, everyone seemed at least cautiously satisfied with the plan. Karen jotted it all down in her pad and handed Burl a piece of paper with her name and number, so that he wouldn’t have to hold onto a New York Bulletin reporter’s business card. When he left, he had only a few muttered words of thanks for Trish and Jessica, but he caught Karen’s eye and looked at her with a forlorn kind of trust that her instincts told her to return.

The final interview was with a middle-aged woman who freely admitted that she hadn’t seen Daredevil, but wanted to share her opinions about how he had made the streets unsafe. Jessica expedited her departure with a few pointed insults, then gave Karen a flat look and said, “Lunch is on Trish. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback would be really helpful to me right now -- is the pace not working? Too much of certain characters and not enough of others? Don't worry about hurting my feelings; I don't have any. :)


	8. Jump the Gun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matthew Michael Murdock makes many memorable mistakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still here; had some stuff going on this week that kept me away from posting this chapter but it wasn't writer's block stuff.
> 
> I should warn you that this one is all from one character's perspective. Also that the character is Matt. Frank and Karen will be back to fret over each other next week.

Matt had always secretly found some appeal in the romance of being a “lawyer by day, vigilante by night,” but it was first and foremost a matter of practicality. Daredevil couldn’t be seen in broad daylight without causing the wrong kind of stir, and the cover of darkness was an important edge for fights against the sighted. Day and night had been as one for Matt since he had lost his vision -- he had to check with his inner clock and other signs to even know which was which -- but he considered darkness an ally and a protector. 

That was just one reason he felt sure he was making a mistake when he put the suit on hours before sunset and went to find Frank Castle. It was a long while before Castle was supposed to arrive, according to the tip that Matt had overheard, but the address seemed to be for a meeting location rather than a home base. If Matt was careful, he should be able get close enough to find out more about who was going after whom, and if he had to get involved himself, any fighting wouldn’t take place until it was dark enough to give him the advantage. But he still had to get there in costume, and he was still far from peak condition. 

He kept to the rooftops and reached his destination tired out from making too many leaps, but without giving himself away. There was no sign of any gang action here yet, so he sat down, his back against a chimney, and listened below himself for clues.

It was a residential building, which wasn’t a good sign. Castle’s tip wasn’t likely to have known where Russell Blagg lived himself, so what business could he have here? Matt could hear families, couples, roommates, none of them talking about anything that seemed relevant. He memorized a rough floor plan of the building and the locations of some of the people in it, and then stood up to find a way inside if he needed one. The only door on the roof locked from the inside, but it was easy to break the handle to leave it open.

His early arrival time meant that he had a good hour of rest and recon before he heard two men coming up the fire escape. One called the other “Russ” while complaining about the steps, and Matt quickly formed a plan.

When they reached the roof, he was crouched behind the waist-high wall bisecting the area, and he grabbed the one who wasn’t Russ and tossed him down the fire escape before either of them had a chance to react. The man shouted until he hit a landing and was knocked unconscious, and Russell was distracted for the crucial few seconds that Matt needed to seize him and twist his arms behind his back. 

“Fuckin’ idiot!” Russell growled, struggling. Matt didn’t respond. Before anything else he had to make sure that the other man would survive, and his current opponent wasn’t making it easy to listen for vital signs.

The second that he had confirmation, Matt shifted his grip to wrench the shotgun out of Russell’s hands, then released him and stepped back with the gun aimed at his head. The man was wearing body armor, but Matt didn’t intend to fire so much as a warning shot anyway. Now that he had his attention, he was sure he could see this through without any more fighting. He would have to, really. Russell was taller than him and more heavily muscled, and although he didn’t seem to have any special hand-to-hand training, he had been close to breaking Matt’s hold on him through sheer force.

“I’m here to talk,” Matt informed him. “Your friend will be fine.”

“He ain’t my friend.” Russell was poised to draw his other gun, a pistol on his hip, but he wasn’t stupid enough to try it.

Matt used the shotgun to gesture. “Keep one hand up, put your weapon on the ground, kick it over to me.”

There was a stench of fear pervading the air, but Russell’s skin was hot with anger as he complied. “What do you want?”

“For starters I want to rescue you.” The pistol came sliding over, and Matt put his foot on it. He hadn’t ever unloaded a shotgun before, but his sonar gave him a good idea of what to do, and he let the ammunition spill onto the ground in a matter of seconds. “I know who you are, and I’m not the only one. Frank Castle has a shit list with your name on top and he’s headed here right now. Your best bet is to listen to me, do you see that? He’ll kill you. I won’t.”

It was clear from his heartbeat that the name had an impact on him, but Russell still put a sneer into his voice when he answered. “You think I’m gonna work with fuckin’ _Daredevil?_ ”

So Daredevil’s reputation in Hell’s Kitchen had outlived him. “For five minutes? To avoid getting shot in the head before you know what’s happening? Yeah, I think you will.”

“You got my guns, man. If you’re not gonna use ‘em, say your piece or let me leave.”

Matt had dropped the shotgun after emptying it, and the pistol was still under his foot. “Fine. Look, I don’t want to work with you either, but we have an enemy-of-my-enemy situation.”

Russell’s posture tightened. “I don’t even believe Castle’s alive, you’re not gonna get me with that boogeyman shit--”

“Not him. Tell me everything you know about Javelin.”

“Jave--? Classified, sweetiepie.”

Matt stooped to pick up the pistol. He didn’t point it at the man, but it seemed like a more effective threat when it was in his hands. “How’s it help you to protect them?”

He sniggered. “You take ‘em off the streets, I don’t get my paycheck, do I?”

The line about not believing Castle was alive had been a lie, but this one wasn’t. Russell Blagg was, apparently, nothing but a common hitman. It was going to take some lawyering to get anything else out of him. “You’re also not getting it if your boss is dead. Or if you are, but my money’s on them leaving you for Castle to dispose of. Whatever you’re supposed to be doing here tonight, a better plan is to find the guy who puts the food on your table, and start playing bodyguard.”

“You think I’m gonna lead you to him, huh?” Russell laughed. He turned his head to the side and spat. “Good one. You don’t know shit. Javelin’s gonna make you their bitch, unless you get lucky and I kill ‘em all first. Now if you wanna keep up your bluff about Castle, it’s time we get away from here, right?”

Matt considered the sparse information he had gathered from that: Russell wasn’t concerned about his employer’s safety, which meant that the man was currently out of reach, but he was clearly anxious to move off the roof. It was in his voice when he probed about the “bluff” -- the threat of Castle, it seemed, was better leverage than anything else Matt had in his artillery. “He knows who you are, Russell Blagg. He got your name from a guy named Paul who fouled up a job a few nights ago. And keep in mind I said he’d kill _you._ I feel fine right where I am.”

That did the trick. Russell’s heart was racing, sweat was beading up on his brow, and he even lost his composure enough to whisper a volley of curses and clench his head with both hands. “Though you wanted to rescue me,” he accused.

“Just get out of town. You’ll never get a better chance to break away, anyway. Nobody will know what happened here or where you went.”

“It don’t work like that.” Russell gave a helpless shrug and then let his arms drop to his sides. “But hey, if I gotta leave, are you gonna let me leave, or what?”

Matt paused before answering; he had been listening for movement on the ground, and he was increasingly sure that the four sets of footfalls he heard were headed for this building. “Who were you supposed to meet here?” he asked.

“Someone who’s gonna make this a lot more complicated. Stay if you want.”

“Go,” said Matt, making a half-hearted gesture at the fire escape with the gun he was still holding.

As Russell rushed down the fire escape, Matt jumped back behind the wall where he had hidden before to wait, and listened through the vibrating metal stairs for the approach of the newcomers. Before they were close, Russell’s descent was obstructed by the unconscious form of his partner, and Matt cursed himself -- he hadn’t had a plan for the other man, or given Russell any instructions. Maybe it wouldn’t matter, he thought, but then there came the sound of a holster being removed and then fastened onto Russell’s belt instead: he was armed again. Even if he was leaving Hell’s Kitchen, he was doing it with a loaded gun, and it was Matt’s fault.

Torn, he tried to at least figure out where Russell would go before he made his own move, but the others were getting closer and he didn’t want to miss whatever was going to happen next up here. Then Russell’s movements took an unexpected turn. He was going into the apartment building, through the main door.

Matt remained frozen with indecision until he heard the hitman get into the elevator and check the clip in the gun. Destination, top floor. Six apartments. Three of them currently occupied.

There was no more time to think about it. Matt rushed through the rooftop access door and into the building just as the elevator door was opening. Russell was facing him at the end of the corridor, too long a distance to get to him before he stepped out and pulled his gun. Matt took the first bullet in the body armor directly over his heart and fell back. The armor didn’t crack, but there would be a huge bruise coming, and Russell had five more bullets in his clip.

Children screamed inside one of the apartments, and a woman in another. Matt stayed down, forcing himself to be still instead of cringing with the pain, and it worked well enough for Russell to carelessly step around him to get to one of the doors. Matt kicked out and caught him in the shin, then sprang to his feet. He had a tight grip on Russell’s gun hand when a door behind him opened.

“Get back!” Matt commanded whoever was trying to rubberneck. “Stay inside!” The gun went off, Russell’s finger coming down on the trigger as he tried to wrench it away, but he hadn’t been aiming and the shot went into the ceiling. The door slammed shut again.

Stick had always told Matt that sight was a distraction, but he hadn’t offered any solutions for the distractions caused by super-enhanced hearing. As Matt grappled with Russell, he could hear the four men outside going up to the rooftop for their meeting, and at the same time, a man in the apartment where the door had opened was frantically telling his wife, “They sent him for me, you have to get the children out.”

Russell landed a hard punch in Matt’s face, threw him down, and headed for the family’s closed door. It was locked, thankfully, but he immediately began kicking it instead, and as Matt lurched to his feet, the rooftop entrance that he had used burst open to admit four men. The first one fired a gun down the hallway, missing both Matt and Russell with no clear sign of which of them had been the intended target.

There were more screams now, some of them coming from the floor below, and residents were coming up the stairwell. Russell succeeded in kicking the door in. Matt lunged after him, grabbed him by the shoulders, and pulled him back into the hallway. Two more shots were fired, and one hit Matt’s side, where the armor was weaker. He managed to turn the fight around so that Russell was between him and the four new gunmen, but it left him cornered, with nowhere to go but the apartment with the broken door. 

Just as trapped as Matt was, Russell whirled away from him and fired four times, and Matt ducked into the apartment without waiting to find out if anyone was hit. He did his best to secure the door behind him, but it was fruitless, and while his back was turned to the room, one of its occupants pulled a gun on him. A woman gasped, and there were two children in there as well, one of whom whispered, “Daredevil!” in fearless awe.

“Can you get out?” Matt asked the man, ignoring the fact that he had a gun to his head. The best way to defuse the situation was to show that he wasn’t the threat here.

The man hesitated, but his wife answered quickly: “There’s a body on the fire escape!”

Matt winced and nodded, trying to come up with something. For once he was glad to hear sirens in the distance. In the hallway, three of Russell’s antagonists were retreating down the stairwell, one of them severely wounded and the other two supporting him between them. The fourth was in a fistfight with Russell, who suddenly kicked him down the first flight of stairs and went for the apartment again. Matt braced himself against the door just in time, but couldn’t hold it for long. He was knocked to the side and Russell barged in, a single round left in his barrel.

Who he wanted was clear, but with a little strategy and no mercy, he could put his target’s family in just as much danger as his target. For a few seconds, everyone froze. Even the children seemed to be holding their breath. Matt listened to the two men’s trigger fingers and knew that the father was about to fire, and that Russell would live to fire back. He couldn’t push either of them out of the way without endangering the innocents. He said a prayer, waited for the right millisecond, and threw himself between them. 

The father’s bullet hit the armor on his back. Russell’s, which was purposefully aimed at him, grazed his neck. Reeling with pain, he hauled himself up to his feet and began trading blows with the hitman.

Finally the sirens had come into normal hearing range. Russell backed out through the door, then spun around and ran, out to the roof where the others had come in. Matt sensed that they were all still alive, but on the ground now, and spreading out to cover more area. He turned to the family, panting. “Let me out,” he said, pointing to the window with the fire escape access.

“The body,” objected the mother, but Matt shook his head. 

“He’s still alive. The police are on their way. Stay in here until they come to you.” He gestured again. “Open the window.”

The woman did, after ordering both children into their bedroom, as the man hovered anxiously at the door, his gun still drawn. Matt stepped out around Russell’s unconscious partner, looped an arm around him, and dragged him up a platform and back to the roof. 

Everything was quiet for a moment. It was finally late enough for Matt to be able to hide in the dark, and Russell was still up here, preparing to jump to the next building from the same point that Matt had come to this one. Matt cracked a grin and stayed low. Russell was welcome to a head start. This would all go much better if he thought he was getting away with it.


	9. Pete Castiglione

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Sgt. Mahoney has observed, Frank and Karen keep bumping up together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you stopped reading because it was getting too Matt-centric, hopefully this one will bring you back. :)

Red and blue lights from three police cruisers and a fire engine were flashing over everything that Frank could see on the ground when he arrived on a neighboring rooftop. He didn’t bother setting up his EDM Arms Windrunner. Whatever had happened here was already over; it was plain that he wouldn’t have a target tonight. He hadn’t really expected one in the first place anyway, but he hadn’t expected this, either.

Karen was down there, talking to an officer. The distance to the ground made it hard to pick out individual faces, but there was no mistaking her hair, not to mention her tall slender body and pencil skirt. Frank drummed his fingers against the wall in indecision, then sighed and took his phone from his pocket to call her.

He watched her react to the ring, say something to the cop, and turn away from him only to look at the screen for a long moment before accepting the call. “Pete,” she said flatly.

“Whatever it is, I didn’t do it,” he replied. 

Immediately, her eyes went up to the skyline as if an irresistible force had drawn them. “I’m hearing a different take. I can’t talk here.”

“Yeah, I know. Quit looking for me. Someone’s gonna notice.”

She lowered her head with a startled twitch. “You shouldn’t even be out. Go home and I’ll call you later.”

Frank had to agree with her there: he had come on a fool’s errand, and now it looked like a new hunt for the Punisher was on. He could have made it safely back to his apartment to lie low for a few days, but then what? Whoever was responsible would still be on the loose, and Karen would still be putting herself in danger to find out more. “No,” he decided out loud. “I gotta see you. Where can you meet me when you’re done at the scene? Docks?”

Before she could answer, the officer she had been talking to approached her again. Frank couldn’t hear what he said, but Karen’s side of the conversation came into the phone despite her lowering it to talk to him. “I’m sorry, Brett, I’ll be right there...no, it’s not related, it’s just my boyfriend.” Her voice got stronger again as she returned to speaking directly to Frank. “Pete, I’m going to text you an address. Stop laughing.”

“I ain’t laughing,” he laughed. He wasn’t sure why he even found it funny. ‘Boyfriend’ was a good cover story for the Pete who had called her at that time of night, but anyone who heard her say it would never dream she was lowering herself to a Pete like him.

He sobered quickly after they hung up and he received her text. The address was in Hell’s Kitchen, not so far from here, but he had left the van some distance away, and he would have to get back to it to stash the Windrunner. It was probably part of her intention to make him hurry so he would get away from the scene before she did. 

At least she seemed safe enough where she was, though. She had called the officer ‘Brett’, and now he remembered: Sergeant Brett Mahoney was the one who had arrested him with Murdock’s help, and Karen had dealt with him a few times since then. He was trustworthy, she said, a rare commodity in the layers of corruption suffocating the precinct. 

Frank took another few minutes to look over the scene below, but there was nothing else to learn from it. Karen was deep in conversation with Mahoney, taking frequent notes. She didn’t try to look for Frank again.

It was another hour before he had parked the van again, this time on a street a few blocks from the address that Karen had given him. He deliberately walked past the location the first time to throw off any observers, although the sidewalks had been deserted since he got out of the van. He almost did a double take when he saw where she had sent him: the number of his destination was clearly shown on the wall of a pretty little church called St. John of the Cross. The lights were off. Was he supposed to go trying the doors until someone saw him and reported a break-in? He shook his head and circled the block.

When he made it back around, there was a woman, not Karen, standing at the side entrance. At this time of night she looked just as out of place as he did, so he didn’t avoid meeting her eyes as he approached, and she took a hesitant step toward him and said, “Mr. Castin...Cassili...Pete?”

He stopped in front of her and didn’t say anything. She was tall and wide and inspired an automatic certainty that she would die before inflicting the slightest hurt on an innocent, and Frank didn’t have any clue about how she fit into this. She gave her long hair a nervous twist. “If you’re here to meet with Karen, I can let you in. She’s downstairs.”

Frank inclined his head. “Thank you ma’am.” He followed her to the door, which she unlocked with a skeleton key as well as an ordinary one. Inside, she turned on a stairwell light, then turned it off again when they had reached the basement level, where she opened a door and led him into a dimly lit community kitchen. Nobody was there but Karen, sitting in one of the folding chairs that lined the long tables set end-to-end in the middle of the room.

She stood up as soon as they came in. “Sorry about the cloak and dagger,” she said to Frank. “We thought it would be better if Betsy was the one who came out to get you instead of me, just in case anyone followed us here.”

“You a friend of Karen’s?” Frank asked Betsy. They weren’t going to get very far if he didn’t know what could be said in front of her. 

Karen nodded solemnly while Betsy lifted her shoulders and said, “We only just met, really. She called looking for Father Lantom and I was here setting up for tomorrow’s AA meeting, so I let her in.” She frowned, eyes downcast. “I can’t figure out where he would have gone, so late. I thought maybe Karen would know.”

“But I don’t,” Karen sighed. “It’s probably just something completely mundane, but...one more mystery.” She gave Betsy a reassuring look. “I’ve got your number, so I can call you if he shows up. I’m sure you want to get home by now.”

Frank thought about what could have happened to the resident priest, and came up empty; Karen was probably right that it was unrelated. He spotted a Mr. Coffee across the room. “You think he would mind if I…?” he asked Betsy, pointing as he headed toward it.

She blinked, then released a short laugh. “Just make sure you wash it when you’re done. He’s been using it a lot since the espresso machine broke. He loves that thing, must have gotten him hooked on caffeine.” She turned back to Karen. “So, I showed you how to lock up and set the alarm. Call me when you’re leaving. Even if you don’t see Father Lantom.”

Karen promised she would, and they both said goodbye. Frank did too, putting aside the coffee to thank Betsy and then returning to it when she was gone. “Why here?” he said to Karen as he searched through the drawers for filters.

“Sanctuary,” she replied, irony and resignation struggling for control over the word. She leaned back against the counter, arms crossed. “I trust Father Lantom, but I don’t have any real connection to him or the church. Thought you’d want somewhere that nobody would come looking for either of us.”

“Yeah.” He kept his eyes on the pot until he had pressed the button to begin brewing, and then he took in the sight of her, sparking with pent-up energy even in her weariness. “I ain’t got a story for you, Karen. Not tonight.”

“Why were you on the roof?”

“Had a lead. Someone musta got there first. I didn’t see anything you didn’t.”

She inclined her head, believing him, just like that. He crouched to open up the cupboard under the espresso machine and found a toolbox nestled between two cardboard boxes of parts.

Karen watched with idle curiosity as he set it on the counter and opened it up, but she didn’t question it, just said, “They found one guy on the fire escape who had been knocked out. He barely seemed to know what was going on, but there were plenty of other witnesses. Nearly all the top-floor residents wanted to tell the police about what they saw.”

The front panel of the espresso machine came off with a Phillips screwdriver. Frank moved it to the side, placed each of the four screws carefully into a coffee mug, and peered into the exposed innards of the machine. “And what was that?”

“Daredevil,” she stated. “Daredevil fighting the Punisher.”

Frank paused without looking up, then spoke without looking up. “I’d tell you if I saw him, you know that, right?”

Karen made a dissatisfied sound in her throat. “You’re not going to say it couldn’t have been Matt?”

“I’d tell you if I saw someone dressed up like him, too.” He found a small flashlight in the toolbox and set it up to shine into the machine. He could already see what was probably causing the problem, although he had never really paid much attention to how espresso was made. Why anyone needed to experiment with variations on a good cup of black coffee was beyond him. “You decide for yourself if it coulda been Murdock having it out with Blagg. I say no, yeah, but you knew that already.”

“Blagg?” Karen asked, unexpectedly zeroing in on the only thing he had said that wasn’t about Murdock. “You’ve got a name on the Punisher copycat?”

There was a piece that had clearly been knocked out of its place; Frank found a pair of pliers in the box and got to work on it. “Name. Records. Good look at a picture of him so I know him for sure when I track him down.” He didn’t regret sharing the name with her, but he hadn’t fully thought through what she was likely to do with it. “He’s a piece of shit. Career toadie, gets sent on hits and takes out witnesses while he’s at it.” 

“So that was your lead?” she said quietly. “You were there to kill a hitman?”

Frank straightened up, washed his hands in the sink, and faced her as he dried them on the hanging hand towel. “Was there to see if I was gonna get a clear shot at him, yeah.”

“And when he’s dead and he gets replaced by some other asshole wearing your logo, you’ll go looking for a clear shot at him too? And so on until they all decide that impersonating you is too much of a risk?”

“That’s the idea. You got a better one?” He tossed the towel down and opened the cupboard for a pair of mugs; the coffee had finished brewing. 

His voice had been hard, but the look she gave him was harder. “You said the vengeance tour was over with. I came to you with this because I thought there was some kind of resolution to it that didn’t involve another corpse. Let me bring down the police on this guy. They’ll investigate before they sentence him and we’ll know if he’s really so far gone--”

“He is,” Frank cut in. “This ain’t some kid who made a couple bad choices. I got proof, Karen. Solid proof.” That had come from David, who handed over the information with an air of knowing exactly what Frank planned to do with it. The words _I can live with that_ had echoed silently between them.

Whether Karen could live with it was another matter. She furrowed her brow at the cup he was holding out to her, but accepted it and held it up to her nose to inhale. “Is this a plan, Frank, or is it a habit? You might have proof about Blagg’s past, but you don’t have any on his future.”

He took a sip of his own coffee, not really tasting it, but appreciating the dull burn against his lips. “Habits don’t break easy. People don’t change. That’s the future.” It would have been nice to believe that maybe he was the exception, maybe he could be a new man someday. It would have been nice to let Karen believe it. He set down his cup and reached for the plating he had removed from the espresso machine, and held it in place one-handed while fishing one of the screws out of the spare mug. “Look, if the cops get to him first, I ain’t gonna make a fuss. But you can’t ask me to sit on my hands while this shit keeps happening in my name.”

“You’re not a solo act anymore. You know that, right? You have to start thinking about how the people in your life are going to be affected by what you do.”

“Yeah?” Frank slammed down the screwdriver before he’d finished with even the second screw. “How about this girl Betsy you sent out to get me? This priest who’s gone missing? You thinking about them at all?” Her stricken expression made him instantly repentant, and he softened his tone. “More people you’re responsible for, more you gotta make choices about who to take care of. I know you at all, you’ll put yourself last. Scares me, alright?”

Karen nodded, an economical motion with eyes downcast, and took her coffee back to the tables lined up in the middle of the room. Frank finished with the espresso machine and replaced the tools and flashlight before retrieving his own coffee. He wasn’t going to make an espresso to test it -- he didn’t even know how -- but maybe he could put a note on there before he left, or Karen could. He ambled over but stopped a pace behind her chair. 

She turned it sideways, one elbow propped on the table and her other hand curled around her mug, still full. “Father Lantom knows I know you,” she said, sounding more conciliatory than he had expected. “He’s a secret keeper, though. He knew about Matt all along.” She peered up at him. “I told Betsy you were my boyfriend Pete and that we both needed a place to wait for a little while, and she didn’t ask for details. I think it’s not the first time Father Lantom has asked her to cast a blind eye while she’s lending a hand.”

“Alright,” Frank allowed. He still didn’t like it, but he trusted Karen to contain it from here on in. “Was it her who couldn’t pronounce Castiglione, or did you give it to her wrong?”

“Castiglione,” she said precisely, with a skewed smile. “Why did you pick that, anyway?”

He shrugged. “It’s the Sicilian form.”

“Are you Sicilian?”

“Nah. Maria was. Her maiden name was Guzzo, I used to tease her with it. Means ‘dog’.” Ever since that first conversation in the hospital, it had been easier to talk about Maria and the kids with Karen than with anybody else. She listened like a musician trying to learn a new piece by ear, and he found memories he had never expected to revisit again. It was enough in itself to make him look forward to seeing her, although not enough to make him lose sight of the danger he posed to her. 

“Guzzo,” she echoed, sampling the word like a piece of candy. “Nice.” She stretched in her chair, rolling her shoulders. “I’m going to stay a little longer, see if Father Lantom does come back. You can get going if you want. I’ll clean up.”

Frank hesitated, then pulled out the chair next to her and put down his coffee. “Mind if I just finish this first?”

“Be my guest.” Her smile was brief but radiant. “So, Castiglione, now I have to know. If you’re not Sicilian, where did you come from?”


	10. But the Fighter Still Remains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was supposed to be an ordinary day, but no, she has to save another life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's been a couple months and I really didn't intend that at all. Even the anticipation stage for _Infinity War_ turned out to be a major distraction from everything else, but I'm not giving up on Kastle; just left them on the back burner for a bit.
> 
> Very sorry if anyone's still interested in this story and I left you hanging! I'll try to be better.

Karen was beginning to recognize the volunteer staff at the animal shelter, Hell’s Kittens. They knew her, too: the sanguine young woman who signed her in asked right away if she was ready to adopt yet, or if she just wanted to take a walk.

“Just a walk,” Karen replied. “Is the boxer still here? He was such a doll.”

The volunteer shook her head. “His family showed up and took him home, actually. I’ll miss him, but it’s nice to get a happy ending.”

It really was, and Karen quashed her disappointment. The boxer hadn’t been meant for her, even if she had been here to get a dog. “So, do you have any ideas on who I can pair up with for the next hour?”

“There’s one that just came out of quarantine. She’s a little shy, but you’ve got enough experience, right?” She led Karen to the outdoor enclosures, where five dogs of various types were currently frolicking in separated pens. The one in the middle was sitting in the farthest corner, and it took a little coaxing to get her to the door and onto a leash. “There,” said the girl at last, petting the black and white dog warmly. “She might yank a little. I hope that’s okay. We think she’s still pretty young.”

Karen scratched the dog’s dangling ears, but didn’t get much of a reaction. “What’s her name?” she asked.

“I’ve been calling her Sicily.” If she noticed that the word had startled Karen, she didn’t show it, just went on in a somewhat hushed tone: “I’m kind of worried for this one. She looks like she’s at least half pitbull, and you know how hard it is for those to find a home. And let’s be honest, she’s not exactly the prettiest. If nobody wants her, well. Better if we just give her a chance, right?”

“Right,” Karen agreed immediately. It was true; Sicily was nondescript and stocky, nobody’s dream dog. If she had behavioral problems on top of that, she might be doomed. “Let’s get that harness on and see if we can make her some friends.”

There were a few different routes to choose from, all of them winding through the park that bordered Hell’s Kittens. Karen had taken the same one every time, and knew where to find a picnic table off the trail with nothing but trees around it. Sicily pulled on the leash the entire way, refusing to heel as if on principle. She wasn’t huge, but she was powerful, and Karen’s arm was hurting soon in spite of her patience and her formidable experience with training dogs.

By the time they reached the picnic table, she was glad to loop the leash around one of its legs and sit and rest while Sicily prowled a few paces back and forth. In another minute, Jessica came walking down the trail from the other direction, with Burl, the respondent from Trish Talk, at her side. Sicily growled at them as they approached, making Burl eye her suspiciously and Jessica say, “Hey, I thought I was your guard dog,” with a wry grin.

Karen wrapped a hand around Sicily’s collar and kept it there while Jessica and Burl came to the table, and finally the dog huffed and lay down at the end of her lead. “She’s my cover story,” Karen explained. “With her here no one will look twice at us. So, do you have anything for me?”

Burl sat across from Karen, as far as he could get from Sicily, and took an overstuffed envelope from inside his jacket. “You gotta be careful with this shit,” he warned. “He find out you lookin’ for him, he find you first and there ain’t nothin’ gonna save you then.”

“Blagg?” Karen asked. She thumbed through the contents of the envelope, but couldn’t see much without dumping it all out, which she wasn’t planning to do out here. “I’ve got someone tracking him already.”

“Nah, nah, Blagg just a stooge. Headed outta town by now anyway. Man in charge, he called Wake. Donovan Wake. It’s all in there, a’ight? It ain’t gonna be enough to put him away but it’s all I got.”

Jessica had seated herself on the table, her feet on the bench beside Burl. She glanced at the envelope without any sign of interest, then asked Karen, “Am I understanding here that you hired someone to go after the fake Punisher? You should have told me.”

Karen shook her head absently. “I didn’t hire anyone. And you’re doing enough for me already.”

“It’s alright,” said Jessica. “Burl here’s gonna take me to Taco Bell after this so it’s not a sunk afternoon.”

“Say _what?_ ” His affront bordered on outrage. “Woman, you said you was takin’ _me_ to Taco Bell!”

In no mood to banter with them, Karen interjected, “I’ll take the whole damn borough to Taco Bell if you help me bring down this Donovan Wake. Who is he? Why is he hiring hitmen to pretend to be the Punisher?”

Burl gave his head a hard shake, his yearning for tacos apparently forgotten. “I don’t know that. I know he a snappy dresser. I know he got a high-rise apartment in Manhattan. I know he got legal flow from some shit called Roxxon, but the dirty flow is comin’ at him from everywhere else.”

“Roxxon,” said Karen under her breath. She frowned, thinking. “If he’s got a public face I could try getting an interview with him. Say it’s for some kind of flattering garbage about his success in business.”

“Ain’t nobody get face-to-face with Wake. He got guys to hire his guys who hire his guys.”

Karen glanced up at Jessica and saw nothing but a neutral expression. She turned back to Burl and pressed, “But if he lives in Manhattan, he must have some kind of contact with someone.”

He shrugged. “Naw, I says he got an apartment there, not he live there.”

“Okay.” She told herself not to be frustrated; this was already a good start, and she couldn’t expect Burl to know everything. “I should look through this information before we start planning to expose him, anyway.”

“Yeah, knock yo’self out.” He swiveled around on the bench, lifting each leg out from under the table.

Karen stood halfway up by reflex. “Where are you going?” 

“I gave you what I got. Rest is on you, Karen Page.” He made a half-hearted farewell salute before he turned away. “I hope you get him. My little bro, he need justice so he rest in peace.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and strode swiftly back down the path.

After a few beats of silence while they watched him go, Jessica slid down from the table to the bench. “Damn,” she remarked. “I wasn’t really gonna stiff him on the fast food. Now I feel kind of bad.”

Karen chuckled absently. The envelope full of Burl’s information was stashed in her purse, and she was already burning to take a closer look at it. “Guess he was in a hurry to get out of here. Seemed like he’s more scared of all this than we are. Thanks for coming, though. You never can tell.”

Jessica made a sound that might or might not have been agreement. “Hey, about the Punisher knockoff…”

“Russell Blagg,” said Karen, a little more tightly than she’d intended. “Burl’s right, we shouldn’t bother trying to catch him.”

“How’d you get his name?”

Much as Karen trusted Jessica, she wasn’t about to start tattling on Frank. “Working on a story, but so far I don’t have anything I can publish. It sounds like Blagg failed his last hit, so he’ll be getting as far away from Wake as possible. And that’s the opposite direction from where I want to be looking.”

Jessica’s eyes narrowed. “He failed a job? Why?”

“He was caught in the act by Daredevil,” Karen answered, drenching her voice with irony. “Make of that what you will.”

“Well I for one am severely disappointed that I missed it. If I’d known there was a fake Daredevil to go with the fake Punisher, the first thing I would have wanted to do was put them in a mayonnaise jar together to see if they fight.”

Karen leaned her face into her hand with a tired smile. “God bless Hell’s Kitchen, huh?” Jessica returned the smile, and for a moment they were silent. Then Karen sighed and gathered up her belongings, making sure the packet of information from Burl was secure. She reached under the table to untie Sicily’s leash from the table leg.

In the next second the dog’s jaws were on her forearm, digging in through her coat sleeve with incredible pressure. She let out a brief cry of pain, her other hand fluttering around the leash and collar, but she knew she wasn’t getting out of this on her own strength. Sicily was staring straight at her, and a strangely disconnected thought resonated through her mind: she had never seen such sadness in a pair of eyes, save only Frank Castle’s.

“Jesus!” yelled Jessica, and before Karen could tell her not to hurt the dog, she had pried her mouth open with her hands. 

Karen stumbled back, clenching her arm as it was released. Sicily scooted back under the table, whimpering. “Is she--?”

“She’s fine,” Jessica snapped. “Fuck that, are you okay? Let me see.”

Ignoring the dirty look that Jessica was giving the dog, Karen knelt to check for herself, and only stood up when she was satisfied that no part of her had been harmed in the defense maneuver. Jessica rolled her eyes impatiently, and Karen ignored that too. She shrugged her wool coat off, wincing a little. “The skin is barely even broken, it’s just going to -- ow -- bruise a little. I have to calm her down and get her back to the shelter, though.”

“No, you have to go get checked out at the ER. I’ll take Cujo back, tell them what happened--”

 _”No!”_ The sharpness in Karen’s voice surprised both of them. She took a deep breath before continuing. “If they find out she’s got aggressive tendencies she doesn’t have a prayer. They might even be legally obliged to put her down. All I need is to play it cool until I can come back and adopt her.”

Jessica threw her hands up. “So this has been a real productive day, making friends, taking in an attack dog, that’s great. Look, you’re merciful and ambitious and crazed. I’m not gonna try to stop you, but I’m walking back with you so you at least don’t get mauled again before you get that looked at.”

Karen put her coat back on, gingerly easing her right arm through the sleeve. Moving it was painful, but there was no blood visible, so all she had to do would be to sign a few papers without letting on that it hurt. Then the adoption process would be underway, and she could take Sicily home in a few days and teach her some manners. Assuming, of course, that nobody else was bitten in the meantime. “Thanks,” she said absently, crouching to peer at the dog, who was cowering beyond her reach under the picnic table. “Now I just need to convince her to come out.”

With one defeated sigh, Jessica lifted the table off the ground and held it out of the way. “Save that for Wake.”

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Matt woke to the sound of a woman crying, and knew it was Claire Temple before he knew he was in an unfamiliar bed, before he remembered anything about how he had gotten there, before he even registered that his ribs were cracked and they were far from the only part of his body hurting him. Getting up to go find her was out of the question. “Claire?” he called softly.

The sobbing stopped, and she came into the room and stood over him. “You son of a bitch,” she said, with a restrained fury that was sure to be justified in some way that he wouldn’t like.

“I...did I call you? I didn’t want to bring you into this…”

“No? Then you haven’t changed a bit, goddamn you.” She knelt to unzip her medical kit. “Six months, Matt. Everyone who’s ever cared about you has been grieving for you. I held out as long as I could and then I just had to accept that if you were still alive you would have contacted me by now, but no, if it weren’t for your priest you would probably be dead before I knew you weren’t.”

She moved rapidly, checking his vital signs and changing some of his bandages, making no special effort at tenderness. Matt tried to clear his muddled head enough to carry out his half of the conversation. “Father Lantom found me? He found _you_? How?”

“You know what, just stop.” Claire paused as if she had meant the command for herself. She held onto the bed frame and took a deep breath, but none of the emotion left her voice. “Stop digging. I’ll tell you what I know. It isn’t much and we’ve got time to kill while you’re lying here, but if you want to hear it at all, don’t you dare act like your questions are the only ones that matter. Why don’t you start with an apology, okay? Maybe some background that explains a few of the stupid choices you must have been making to land you here. And then a promise.”

Matt nodded feebly. “What kind of promise?”

“That for once in your life you don’t decide you’re done recovering until I say you are. That you prove to me I’m not wasting my efforts.” She put her tools back into the bag and pulled up a chair. “And don’t try to negotiate, or you’re going to get a promise from me instead. I won’t keep doing this, Matt. I won’t leave you to die if you show up on my doorstep like this again, but I will call an ambulance.”

“Okay,” he whispered after only a slight hesitation. “I’m sorry, Claire. You deserve better. You always have.”

Her posture relaxed a little, at last, and she choked out a dry laugh. “Good. That was...good apology. You can get started on the explanation as soon as you’re ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from "The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkle.


	11. Got Your Guy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen's in trouble because of course she is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks. It's not like I have a chance at finishing before DDS3, but I've been craving Kastle and got a bit inspired, so, gonna run with it.

Jessica dashed up the stairs at HCB, not fast enough to reveal that there were superpowers in play should anyone see her, but still faster than the elevator would have gotten her to Foggy’s office. He wasn’t expecting her, and he looked startled when she barged in after a token rap on the door. 

“I got your guy,” she announced, striding over to his desk and slapping down a folder. “This is hard evidence that the alleged Punisher is one Russell Blagg, so you’ve got a green light to tell Hogarth to leave you alone about him. We can settle right now or I’ll bill you by mail.”

He blinked at her, then pushed his chair out and stood up with the folder in his hands. “You found him already? How?”

There was a lot to the story that Jessica wasn’t about to tell him, but he could handle the bare bones. “He left town. Lost his nerve, I guess. He took all his valuables, but that just made it easier to get into his place and grab all the crap he wouldn’t want to have on him while he’s making a new identity.”

“Geez,” said Foggy, holding up an enlarged print he had withdrawn from the file. “He even left the skull vest in his apartment?”

“Right next to his trusty can of white spray paint.” Jessica shrugged. “He’s not a complete idiot. These pictures wouldn’t be enough to find where he is now. But they’re enough to prove that he’s not Frank Castle.”

Foggy paged through a few more of the photos before he answered, “Thanks,” still sounding distracted. He hesitated on one, started to speak, then met her eyes and repeated “Thanks,” more firmly this time. “We’ll settle now.”

He had written her a check and she had tucked it away before she finally admitted the other reason she was here. It wasn’t that she had to make sure she’d been paid before bringing up a contentious subject; she just wanted it understood that this was a private matter and that he wouldn’t owe her anything for it. 

She took a narrow envelope from a pocket on the inside of her jacket and handed it to him. “I didn’t take that one,” she explained as he opened it and took out the single photograph inside, a blurry snapshot that had probably been printed from a cell phone picture. Someone had written on the back with a ballpoint pen: _WATCH YOUR ASS._ “It was given to Blagg sometime in the last couple days.”

“And that’s him?” Foggy asked cautiously, pointing to one of the two figures in the photo, who appeared to be fighting somewhere indoors. 

“Yeah, but look at the other guy.”

Foggy grimaced. “The Daredevil imposter.”

Strictly speaking, that was all that Jessica needed to hear. “Okay," she said with a bland nod.

“What do you mean, okay?”

She lifted her hands and then let them flop down again. “I mean okay. You knew him better than I did. It’s not like some other guy couldn’t put on a devil suit.”

With a hard release of frustrated breath, Foggy held the picture closer to his eyes and stared at it for at least half a minute, then let it drop and said, “I’m calling Karen. She needs to see this.” As he took out his phone, he added, “I’m calling Karen, and then I’m going over to her apartment, because she needs to see this.”

“Can I come?” asked Jessica.

Foggy looked surprised, but he quietly agreed to it as he waited with his phone at his ear through two rings. “Hey, Karen,” he said, clearly addressing her voicemail. “Don’t worry or anything, but I’ve got something I have to show you, so I’m gonna drop in on you in a few minutes, and, uh, I guess Jessica’s coming too. Call me back if you get this first.”

He raised an eyebrow at Jessica as he was hanging up, and she pushed her hand through her hair and looked away. “I gotta know what’s going on with this,” she explained grudgingly. “Matt not being dead would be swell, but you know it’s not gonna be that simple.”

“If I wanted simple,” Foggy replied with a tired grin, “I guess I should have been a butcher, huh?”

Karen wasn’t home, which Foggy claimed was unusual, based on what he knew of her schedule. It didn’t surprise Jessica at all, because talking to her when they meant to would have been simple, but she had been watching Foggy closely and his concern had definitely been growing. After a few futile knocks, he said he was going to try the Bulletin, and asked Jessica if she still wanted to come along.

She nodded and turned to the stairs to go back to his car, but let him get a few steps ahead of her so she could do a quick search for a number and then dial it. 

The call was answered promptly. “Hell’s Kittens Animal Shelter, how can I help you?”

“Hi, I want to check the status of a dog I saw there yesterday. Black and white, kind of ugly, named Sicily?” Jessica reached the bottom of the stairwell while the employee put her on hold to search the records, just as Foggy opened the glass door and went outside.

When he saw that she wasn’t with him, he turned to meet her eyes through the door, and she held up a finger to ask him to wait. In a short time, the shelter worker picked up again. “Hello, ma’am? Sicily is still here and available for adoption. Did you want to make an appointment to come see her?”

This was bad news. She was going to have to tell Foggy that he was right to be concerned. “Yeah, no,” she said into the phone. “I’m calling for a friend. Karen Page? She’s the one who’s interested, do you have that on file?”

“Um...yes, actually, it says that she took a walk with Sicily and then put in a request to start the adoption process. But she didn’t show up at the appointed time today, and requests expire after 24 hours, so…”

This was worse news. “What time was that supposed to be?”

“Two-fifteen.” The voice sounded unfazed; this probably happened all the time. “I can reschedule it, but to renew her hold she’ll have to come back to the facility in person.”

“Shit.” Jessica glanced at Foggy, who was starting to look annoyed but made no move to come back inside to talk to her. Maybe she had the wrong idea about telling him anything. She had to find Karen, and he wasn’t going to be much use for that if he knew something was wrong. Before hanging up, she said to the shelter attendant, “Don’t let anything happen to that damn dog. She wants it. She’ll be back for it.”

“Ma’am, I can’t confirm an adoption without Ms. Page’s written--”

At the end of her patience, Jessica snapped, “Write down that Jessica Jones is putting a hold on Sicily the ugly-face mutt and that if that exact dog is not there next time me or my friend comes in, I’m calling in my own attack dog. Otherwise known as my lawyer.” 

She ended the call with a tap and stuffed the phone back in her pocket. Foggy opened the door for her, still respectfully silent. She pictured him trying to find a legal basis to sue an animal shelter, and felt a little ashamed of herself. 

“Had a thing come up,” said Jessica. “You go ahead and check at her office, call me if she says she thinks it’s really him in the picture.”

Foggy left, after casting her a grim look that showed he knew there was something she wasn’t telling him. Jessica consoled her conscience by resolving to get this done on her own, but then thought about what her next destination should be and realized that it would take an hour on foot. Sighing, she took out her phone again and texted Trish: _Want to come give me a ride?_

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Frank pulled into the Liebermans’ driveway and opened the door before the keys were even out of the ignition. He was parking David’s car in, but he only registered a sense of relief at the sign that his friend was at home. There hadn’t been time to call first.

It was Leo who came to the door in response to his hard knock, and Frank’s single-minded anxiety met its first disruption. He didn’t know what he wanted to say to her, but he knew he didn’t want it to be like this. Her shock at seeing him was plain on her face, and a few words of explanation were the least she deserved, but all he could manage was, “Hey Leo. Is your dad home?”

“Yeah,” she answered, barely above a whisper. Her hand stayed on the knob, gripping it tightly.

“Can I come in?” He kept his hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets, but they were twitching, and he couldn’t straighten his stance or hold her gaze. If Leo had been the one in danger, he could have been the comfort she needed, the guy she could trust, the adult in charge. If Frank himself were in danger, she never would have even known it. But this time it was none of the above, so this was all there was to show her: Pete, afraid.

Instead of answering or moving to let him inside, she took one hesitant step back, then called over her shoulder, “Dad?”

There was movement somewhere in the house, but the next voice that Frank heard was Zach’s. “Is that Pete? Leo? Who is it?” He appeared around the corner in the next moment, and his face lit up.

Fortunately, David was right on his heels. “Come on in, Frank. Leo, Zach, it’s okay, let me talk to him alone for a little while. Go help Mom in the kitchen. We’ll all catch up, but later, okay guys?” As he talked, he took each child by the shoulder and steered them away, and they reluctantly complied. 

Frank glanced at Zach’s confused expression and Leo’s worried one before breaking eye contact with everyone and staring down at the floor. David sounded remarkably sympathetic, his voice pitched low as the kids left the room. “It’s Karen, isn’t it?”

Frank’s head jerked up in surprise. “How--?”

“I’ve seen that look before. Come upstairs.”

They went into David’s home office and he closed the door, and Frank didn’t waste any time in beginning, “I can’t find her.”

“How long?” David asked, waking one of his computers and opening up a program on it.

“Talked to her yesterday but she said she was checking out a source today and she wouldn’t tell me where. She’s not at home, not at work. Phone goes straight to voicemail.” He halted abruptly in the middle of the room and stated sharply, “I ain’t just being paranoid. She was supposed to call. Normal stuff, she can take care of herself, but she’s been getting into something big and…” He heaved a breath. “Just help me, David.”

David nodded calmly. “We don’t have cameras on her apartment anymore, or anything like that. You’re gonna need to tell me what to look for.”

“Start with a guy called Donovan Wake.” He rattled off everything that Karen had told him about the man behind the imposter Punisher. It didn’t amount to all that much, but David easily pulled up a few websites referencing Wake’s business dealings and then used them to feed the software he had designed for collecting more personal details. “Alright,” he said after a few minutes. “I can get you close to this guy, but is that what you want?”

Frank shook his head. “I don’t know if he’s behind it yet.” Even if he was, he wouldn’t be the one who was holding Karen, and Frank couldn’t prove anything. He needed to find someone who was truly at fault, and he needed to find his beloved chronicler, and then he could stop thinking like frightened Pete and start acting like Frank.

“So, I’ll look into his emails?” David waited for Frank’s nod, then rolled his chair to the right to get onto a different computer. “If you don’t mind me saying so, it wouldn’t hurt to keep looking the old-fashioned way. Does she have family in town you could call? Friends?”

It was a reasonable question that felt like a stab wound. Karen’s friends were so distrustful of Frank that they didn’t even want to see him at a funeral. Getting into contact with Foggy Nelson or Betsy from the church would only make them panic. He didn’t know anything at all about Karen’s family, except that they weren’t in town. “No,” he said. “I could swing by the Bulletin again, but if her boss is there he’ll, uh, recognize me.”

David took that in stride: “Better not to risk it, then. But if you want to go walk the streets I’ll call you as soon as I get anything.”

Frank hesitated, torn. He didn’t expect to get anywhere just by rambling around New York, but sitting around waiting for answers while Karen was missing sounded unbearable. “A’right. Thanks. Soon as you got anything, yeah?”

“She’s gonna be fine, Frank.” His gaze flicked away from the screen for a second of reassuringly efficient eye contact, then turned to his display of home security cameras. “Back door’s clear. Hurry up or Zach will catch you and you'll end up with a new sidekick."

He successfully dodged Zach, let himself out, and got into his car. Maybe he didn't know where to find Karen, but David would soon. And someone in this city knew already. All Frank had to do was find them.


	12. No Safer Place to Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing about Karen being missing? It wasn't a false alarm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's extra long. There was nowhere to cut it. 
> 
> Fortunately, the pace is picking up, and things are getting Kastley. Enjoy!

An unexpected benefit to the habits Karen had acquired as a reporter was that they helped her manage fear. There was no way to take any notes on what she observed about the men around her, so she had to keep every detail in her memory, and if her concentration was focused on gathering information in the moment, it had no room to wonder what was going to happen to her.

The guard changed now and then, leaving no fewer than four and no more than six in the office building where they had taken her. So far she had counted eight individual faces, and heard references in their conversation to at least three others in the gang that hadn’t been present. That didn’t leave much of an upward limit to how many there were total, but whatever their organization was, it wasn’t small.

Another observation that interested her was the way they acted toward each other. At first, she had thought the first two that she met, both young white men with local accents, were brothers -- they were familiar and friendly, threading jokes into their casual bickering. Since then, though, she had seen that all of them interacted that way, despite having no external signs of relation. It would have been heartwarming if she could be sure that none of them were planning to kill her. As it was, she just made another mental note: _Close-knit team. Could be a cult._

That impression was strengthened by the way they entertained themselves while they were chaperoning her. There was an entire office suite beyond the reception room where Karen had been seated, but she didn’t know what was behind most of the doors, only that two or three men would periodically wander into one of the rooms to spar with each other. She wondered if it would have been possible to determine anything about the discipline of fighting that they practiced based solely on the sounds she heard, if she had only known more about martial arts. Matt had told her once that he used a form of kickboxing as Daredevil. The Iron Fist, according to Jessica, practiced kung fu -- although Karen wasn’t convinced that Jessica was informed about that, or if she had just been mocking him. 

What was Frank’s fighting style? Karen suddenly wished she could ask him. She was sure it wasn’t the same as whatever was causing the thuds and grunts from the other room, but now she was curious. Or maybe her brain was just coming up with excuses to think about Frank.

_I will come for you,_ he had told her once, and she had always believed in it as a lifelong promise, not just an assurance of the moment. But there had been time already to consider every possibility of rescue, and time to accept the reality that none were feasible. Frank didn’t know that she had been investigating anything dangerous, wouldn’t even know that she was missing until it was too late. She should have told him, but it wasn’t doing her any good to chastise herself now. She was just going to have to get out of this herself.

“Can I have the lip gloss out of my purse?” she asked her current attendant, an olive-skinned man in his twenties with eyes that must have caused a lot of swooning in the girls he knew. “It’s in the small inner pocket.”

He looked up from the newspaper he was reading -- today’s Bulletin, of course it had to be the Bulletin -- and nodded, then went behind the desk to rummage through her personal items while she gritted her teeth. She didn’t have a ploy in mind; she really did just want her lip gloss, but she wanted her gun and her phone more, and she knew she wasn’t getting those back any time soon. The .380 wasn’t even in the bag anymore, since they had taken it right away to stash it wherever they stashed their weapons. All of them were openly carrying, which seemed more characteristic of a gang than a cult, but she supposed there was no reason they couldn’t be both.

“Extraordinary Shine Lip Love--” said the guard, reading from a pink tube he was holding up.

“That’s it,” Karen replied, blushing, and held out her hand for it. 

He smiled as if he were proud of himself. At least they were polite, though. They let her use the bathroom as often as she asked, didn’t try to peep or give her a time limit, didn’t react when she got up to pace the room, and answered her questions or deflected them in mild tones. A few hours into the day, they had asked her what kind of pizza toppings she liked before ordering, and then offered her more of it than she could have eaten. 

None of that helped her figure out who they were or what they wanted, though, except that they were confident that she wouldn’t try to escape. And why wouldn’t they be? The building they were in wasn’t derelict, but it looked like this was the only suite occupied, and if she had tried screaming they could have promptly silenced her anyway. They had originally taken her without force, or chloroform, or even overt threats, just a soft request to come with them so she could finish her story with a better source. She had seen their guns, as they had intended, and that was enough.

The main door opened. The young man who had brought Karen her lip gloss snapped to attention with another big smile. “Finally,” he said, and ambled over to clasp hands with the new arrival. They slapped each other on the back, and then the other man, clean-shaven and in his forties, turned to Karen and leaned down for a handshake.

The three other men who were currently in the room stayed, watching as Karen met the apparent boss’s eyes and kept her hands folded in her lap. “I’ve been here for six hours,” she said in an even tone.

“I’m so sorry about that, Ms. Page, believe me, I am sorry. I guess you could say I had a family emergency. I know, there’s no excuse. I hope my colleagues have kept you comfortable while you were waiting.” He reached for one of the chairs that was set against the wall like the one she was seated in, and pulled it out and turned it so they were facing each other. “Let’s not waste any more of your time, believe me, I don’t want that any more than you do. You’re a reporter, am I right? You’ve got a story you’re working on? I can help you with that.”

It didn’t escape Karen that he hadn’t introduced himself, just like the rest of them, who had mostly been calling each other as “bro” or “man in her hearing”. She also saw that he was sleepy-eyed and gentle-voiced, but heavily muscled, and, of course, armed. “I have to say,” she replied, “since this morning I’ve lost interest in the topic I was researching.”

The alacrity with which he answered surprised her. “Donovan Wake? Yeah, good idea. He’s not gonna be happy to find out anyone was trying to expose him, believe me. Far as he’s concerned, he’s got a good thing going with the fat cat life under the radar. That’s why he doesn’t do interviews.”

“You’re not with him?” She didn’t have time to properly consider that question before asking it, but it seemed safe enough. They didn’t want her to know anything, and she didn’t.

“No Ms. Page, believe me, we are not. And the last thing we want is for you to get hurt by him. So, I just want you to know, you’re safe here. There is no safer place in New York you could be than with us.” He gestured gracefully at her. “But I know, in your line of work, you’re still gonna want a story. So let’s see what we can do for you.”

A string of veiled threats, and still nothing she could use to identify them, or to puzzle her way out of here. “If it’s all the same to you, from now on I think I’ll be sticking to the kinds of stories that don’t make me need a safe place.”

She had to hand it to him, he looked genuinely saddened. So did the others, raising their eyebrows at each other as if deciding who was to blame. One lifted his arms in a shrug, and the boss cast him a stern look before saying to Karen, “You don’t want to know what you got rescued from today. I know you had a rough day, you don’t want to trust us, but believe me, I’m just glad we got there in time. Now I just have to do the right thing and make sure you stay safe after you leave this building, so I’m asking for your help so I can do that, you get me?”

“Whatever you think you know about me isn’t true, okay? I’ve never met Donovan Wake. I hadn’t even gotten as far as scheduling an interview with someone who has. Your boys grabbed me out of the lobby of a complex where he supposedly owns some subsidiary of a company I think I may have heard the name of once or twice. I am not somebody you could call… _informed_.”

He sat back in his chair for a moment, crossed his arms, and looked up and around at the other men before turning back to her and taking a deep breath. “Believe me--”

“Do you even realize how many times you’ve already asked me to believe you?” Karen snapped. “Cut the bullshit. I’m not your guest and I don’t need protection from anyone except you. Now if there’s something you want to squeeze out of me, say what it is, and decide what you’re going to do to me when I won’t tell you or when I can’t tell you, because _believe me_ , those are the only two options ahead of us.”

The lip gloss guard gave a low whistle from somewhere at the edge of the room. “Damn,” he said, sounding impressed.

For a moment there was only silence from the boss. He stood up and leaned against the reception desk, and Karen fidgeted, fighting the sudden urge to get out of her chair and cause some trouble just so she could get a good stretch. Her forearm hurt where Sicily had bitten her, and she had been keeping a close eye on her sleeve all day to make sure the bruise stayed covered, which was annoying as well as being a constant reminder that she had missed her appointment at Hell’s Kittens and the dog was probably going to end up put down. She wanted to run, or exercise, or just go outside.

The boss motioned at one of the others, and they headed down the corridor together, leaving two of them to keep their eyes locked pensively on Karen.

There was a bang at the door. It wasn’t a banging knock; it was more like some heavy object had hit it near the middle. Both of the guards reached for their guns. At the second bang, they drew, and the boss returned, with two others behind him. 

The third bang preceded the door flying inward, off of its hinges. Karen dove behind the reception desk just before the gunfire began.

She managed to take her purse down with her, but her phone had apparently been taken out along with the gun. There was nothing else in there that could help. She waited until the shots and the shouting were centered at the corridor where the boss had come from, and then ran the other way, keeping low, not trying to sneak a peek at anything going on around her. There was an empty office to her right, and she rushed in, slammed the door behind her, and pushed the shabby loveseat in front of it.

Now she was back to waiting, just like she had done all day. The immediate danger of a nearby gunfight, she reflected, could really make a person nostalgic for the implied danger of a polite kidnapping. _I’m sorry, Frank,_ she caught herself thinking, and angrily banished it from her head. She was not going to die. Not like this.

After a few minutes that felt like hours, the shots began to space out like popcorn in the microwave. Karen counted three of her own long breaths as the only sound outside of the ringing in her ears, and then there was a voice outside the door. A woman’s voice. 

“Hey, Page? You want to snoop through some files before we get out of here, or just leave it for the cops?”

Jessica’s voice.

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

At the sound of the doorbell, Trish got up from the table, leaving Jessica poring over the documents she had brought home, and Karen dozing on the couch. She wasn’t sure who to expect, but she wasn’t alarmed until she took a look at the door camera. A tough-looking man was standing in the corridor, swaying slightly, his eyes grim under the shadow of a black hoodie. She had never met him, but she felt she would be sensing danger from him even if she didn’t recognize him from the news.

Without touching the intercom, she called back into the apartment, “Jess, could you come here for a second?”

Jessica looked up, then came to the door. Trish gestured at the face on the monitor.

“Holy shit,” said Jessica, quietly enough to keep Karen from waking. “Which one of us is a crime lord?”

“All the work we put into finding the fake Punisher, and the real one shows up on my doorstep,” Trish whispered back. “Does he want something from Karen, do you think?”

“Forget that. How did he know to come here? This is her first time at your place and it’s only been like an hour. Trish, this might not have anything to do Karen. Why don’t you let me talk to him?”

Trish gave her the look that meant she wasn’t impressed. She didn’t know why she bothered; that look never impressed Jessica. The doorbell rang again, and they both looked at the monitor to see the man’s expression getting harder and his movements more agitated. “I’ll do the talking,” said Trish. “Don’t wake up Karen.”

She pushed the intercom button. “Can I help you?”

“Karen in there?” he asked immediately. So much for Jessica’s theory.

They shared a silent look, and then Trish turned back to the screen and said, “Mr. Castle, I’m sure you can understand why your sudden appearance here is surprising, not to mention unnerving. I haven’t called the police yet, but I’d like you to at least offer a compelling reason that I shouldn’t.”

“Because I ain’t bothering anyone.” His voice was rough and gravelly, not far from what she had imagined. Briefly she wondered what it would be like to have him as a guest on her show. “If Karen’s in there, I want to hear her voice telling me she’s alright, and I’ll be on my way.”

“And if she’s not here?” Trish replied.

“Then I’ll be on my way after I get an explanation on where she went after texting me from here ten minutes ago.”

Trish took her finger off the button, and Jessica leaned back against the door, arms crossed, hissing out a breath in Karen’s direction. “We should ask her,” Trish said reluctantly.

Jessica shook her head. “There’s still a buttload of missing pieces. I don’t know what Thug Life here knows, but I don’t want him saying hi and then disappearing before we find out. Let him in and we can trap him here long enough to shake him down.” She gestured impatiently at the look Trish was giving her. “I know who I can handle, Trish. This guy, I can handle.”

Castle was ringing the doorbell again. It seemed he was as adept at annoying people as he was at terrorizing them. She spoke through the intercom: “Can you show that you’re unarmed, Mr. Castle?”

“I am not unarmed, ma’am.” he growled. “And I don’t plan on leaving any loaded weapons outside your door, so if you want me to come in with my hands up, let’s get moving.”

Trish raised an eyebrow at Jessica, who gestured impatiently. A few seconds later the door was swinging inward and Castle was stepping inside, hands behind his head. Jessica began to pat him down, but before she had removed the first gun she found from its holster at his waist, Karen’s voice rang out from the living room. “Frank?”

To the casual observer it might have appeared that he slipped out of Jessica’s grasp, but Trish could see that as soon as his hands dropped and he turned away from her, she had grabbed his arm and only released it when she saw that Karen was rushing across the room toward him. Freed from Jessica, he met her halfway, and Trish blinked repeatedly at the sight of the Bulletin reporter falling into the Punisher’s arms.

He only let the embrace last a second before stepping back and upbraiding her, “What the _hell_ were you thinking?”

“Frank, I told you, I’m okay.” Karen sounded both exasperated and guilty. And tired. Trish didn’t think she had been pretending to sleep just now. 

He shook his head violently, shifting his weight and clenching his fists. “You’re okay, you’re okay, yeah, twenty-four goddamn hours just went by, me not knowing you’re okay. Why you gotta pull this shit all the time, Karen? What did you do?”

As she and Jessica edged closer, Trish flinched; Castle had been ignoring them since he saw Karen, but the anger in his voice, combined with his reputation, should have frightened anyone. Except Jessica, of course, but she was giving Trish a look that said she was ready to act at the slightest signal. Whatever was going on, it was in Trish’s apartment, so she supposed she was the one who had to make the call.

What really fascinated Trish, and what made up her mind in the end, was that Karen wasn’t frightened at all. She couldn’t be shrugging off the Punisher’s fury on the basis that it wasn’t directed at her; it clearly was. Something in their history must have informed her that this didn’t translate to danger for herself or anyone there. 

“I’ll explain everything, but--” Karen’s voice lowered, although not enough to keep anyone from hearing-- “why are you here? How did you even find me?”

It was a relief to hear that she hadn’t deliberately invited him. Trish liked Karen, and she understood when lines had to be crossed, but if Karen thought it was time to cross this particular line, one of them was holding a dangerous misconception.

“You said you were with Jessica, I connected the dots.” Castle was still punctuating his words with short, hard breaths. “You think I was gonna, what? Sit around waiting for a column on it?”

“I told you I was with Jessica so you would know I was safe!” She dropped her head into her hand. “Please, everything is okay. I was just resting here for a little while and I was going to let you know as soon as I was home so we could fill each other in.”

Trish cleared her throat, and they both looked at her as if she had walked into their bedroom. “I was going to say, Karen, that it might be a good idea for you to stay here for a night or two.”

Karen shot her a look that was definitely not gratitude. Castle just kept staring at Karen. After a few more seconds of nobody saying anything, she slowly reached forward and took the zipper tab of his hoodie, and he didn’t stop her. She only had to lower it an inch to see what she was looking for, but it was enough for Trish and Jessica to see it too: a curve of white paint that could only be the top of a skull.

“Jesus,” breathed Karen, zipping it back up and dropping her eyes to the floor. “Tell me you didn’t…”

“I didn’t do shit,” he told her. “Do I need to?”

She shook her head. “We’ve got a lot of work left to do, but none of us are in danger for now.”

Castle gestured toward Trish. “So why’s your friend want you to stay here?”

Before Karen could answer, Trish took a step forward and said, “Hello, I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure. My name is Trish Walker. I live here.”

Jessica guffawed. “He doesn’t know who you are. Refreshing?”

Castle was giving her a bemused smile. “Yeah, uh, nice to meet you, Miss Walker. Frank.”

“Sorry,” said Karen wearily to Trish. “This all probably would have gone better if I hadn’t fallen asleep on your couch. Um, Jessica, this is Frank, Frank, Jessica.”

“You were there?” Castle said to Jessica. “For whatever it was happened today?” Jessica nodded, her arms crossed. He held her gaze for a moment and then said gravely, “Thank you.”

Jessica looked torn between suspicion and embarrassment. “Yeah,” she said.

Karen yawned, hiding it behind a hand. “We really just need to get out of your hair,” she told Trish. “Frank can take me home, I’ll be fine.” She leaned into him to steady herself, and he wrapped an arm around her waist.

Everyone saw it happen: Karen winced when his hand settled on her forearm. It couldn’t be an emotional reaction, since she had initiated the touch, but she made an obvious effort to smooth her face over immediately. Trish thought back to when she had come in with Jessica, and recalled that she hadn’t bared her arms at any point. 

Slowly, just as Karen had checked under his hoodie for the skull, Castle pushed her sleeve up her arm, and she let him do it. Underneath, a large purple bruise had blossomed. His hand dropped, and the two of them stood eye-to-eye, silent except for the increasing volume of Castle’s heaving breath.

Karen broke eye contact first. “Could we have a minute?” she asked in a measured voice.

Trish sighed. “The bedroom is that door.”


	13. I'll Trust Your Judgment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exposition and bonding.

Once they were alone, Frank wasn’t sure how to start. The relief -- and yes, joy -- that he had felt on seeing that Karen was alive and well wasn’t enough to erase what he had been going through over the last day and night, and he was still furious. He was also still afraid. The dark bruises she had hidden back under her sleeve were calling out to him, like a taunt. _Someone hurt her. You weren’t there._

Karen had nothing to keep her silent, though. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said solemnly, “and I wasn’t raped.”

This time the relief itself was painful. His mind hadn’t even been fully able to formulate that fear. All he could voice was, “Karen…”

“I wasn’t assaulted. Or groped. Or anything like it. Nobody even said anything rude to me. I’m okay, Frank. You know I wouldn’t lie to you about this.”

He rubbed his hands over his face, took a few hard breaths, and finally gave a slow nod, eyes unfocused. “So what happened?”

“With this?” She raised her hurt arm and gestured at it with the other. “Life is wacky. I got bitten by a dog. Not even a criminal underworld guard dog, just a shelter dog.”

“Huh.” If he had been anywhere near the mood for it, he thought he would have laughed. That was the last answer he had expected, but it was true, she wouldn’t lie about it. Now that he could think about it a little more clearly, the bruise really had looked older than it would have if she had taken it during her ordeal. “You wanna get some ice on it, though?”

Karen’s mouth quirked in a tired grin. “It’s fine. You’re not the only one who can handle some black and blue.” She hugged herself, though, and let her gaze wander around Trish’s bedroom as if she were scoping out potential escape routes. “Um, when Jessica got there, she knocked everyone out and then called the cops. There was plenty of evidence on hand, so they’re all going to jail. Just so you know.”

Frank snorted. No need to tell her what he thought about them going to jail. “Why were they after you?”

“I was looking into this guy called Donovan Wake--” She held up her hands, seeing his reaction. “It didn’t seem like it was anything dangerous, all I even had was a name…” She faltered and then gave up, hanging her head and pushing her fingers through her hair.

She could have died. She had misjudged the danger, and it could have killed her. Frank took the time to forgive her in his heart, so his next words were low and gravelly but not accusatory: “You gotta stop doing this to me, Karen.”

“I know,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t prepared for that. “You know?” he echoed.

Karen bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut. “I was scared,” she confessed, her voice cracking slightly. “I couldn’t stop thinking about how I had gone into it without telling you. I was scared, and nobody knew where I was, and they took my gun…”

Unable to bear seeing her like this, Frank closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her, and she immediately lay her head on his shoulder and cried into it. “Shhh,” he murmured. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You want another .380, or something else?”

Her muffled sob turned into a muffled laugh, and she lifted her head to meet his eyes. “I’ll trust your judgment. For now I just want to work on this case. Jessica’s all in, so we should probably get back out there and sit down with her and Trish.”

Frank shook his head. “It’s 2am. You gonna sleep here, or you want me take you home?”

“It is?” Karen blinked a few times. “Here, I guess.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow. David dug up some shit on Wake, I’ll bring it over.” He had been prepared to push back if she wanted to go home but didn’t want him to stay on her couch overnight, but this way spared both of them from further argument. This Trish Walker had a good security system, and neither she nor Jessica seemed a fool about using it.

They returned to the living room, where Jessica gave them a sour look over the paperwork she was shuffling through. “It’s 2am,” she informed them.

Karen shrugged, her arms tight at her sides. “Yeah, sorry. Frank’s going home now. Is it still okay if I crash here?”

Trish, who was on the couch taking notes over her own pile of documents, began nodding before lifting her eyes up to Frank and Karen. “Stay as long as you want. It’s no trouble, and it’s easier to work on this together if you’re here.”

“Thanks.” Karen looked at Frank, giving him the wild notion that he would like to kiss her goodnight until she said, “You don’t have to come over tomorrow. I can meet you at my apartment to get whatever info you have for me. I’ll need to stop there anyway to get some clothes.”

He cursed under his breath, but didn’t get any further before she spoke again, louder this time, a strained and helpless protest: “You shouldn’t be around here. You’ll end up on camera. Trish is a celebrity, people notice who she’s seen with.”

Frank frowned, but he understood. Keeping a low profile was still an essential part of Pete Castiglione’s life, and sometimes Karen knew better than he did about how to keep a low profile. “I’ll be back here tomorrow,” he repeated.

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Castle was back there the next day, but Jessica was the only one at Trish’s place when he showed up, a baseball cap low on his brow and a laptop case slung over his shoulder. “Where’s Karen?” he asked as soon as she buzzed him in.

“Hello to you too,” she replied, turning back to the work space she had set up in the kitchen. “Trish took her to the pound.”

He set the case on the counter next to her and gave her a deep scowl as he removed his heavy jacket. “You gonna make me ask again?”

Realizing that she had made an unintended jab at Karen, Jessica didn’t try pushing back against his attitude. “That’s the truth. They went to run errands and one of them was the pound. Karen said she wanted a dog.”

“A dog,” Castle echoed. He shook his head and let out a long sigh. “Okay. So you’re a PI, that right?”

“Yeah.”

“You any good at it?”

Jessica looked up from her papers to give him her best glare. “You any good at mass murdering criminals?”

Castle took off his cap, better to glare back at her, but after just a second of that he shrugged and said, “Fair enough. Show me what you got so far.”

If he hadn’t answered that way, if she hadn’t already talked to Trish and Karen about it and agreed to share information, if she hadn’t been in a decent mood, she would have told him to shove it. But if she had managed to tolerate him so far, it would probably just get easier from here. “You first,” she said. 

He didn’t even hesitate. “That piece of shit calling himself the Punisher, Karen found out who hired him. And the one before that, and probably the next one, if we don’t take care of this now. Guy called Donovan Wake. He’s hard to get at, ‘cause he lives on a goddamn yacht most of the year, but he’s here now, and I know the marina where he docks.”

Jessica blinked. “Yeah...yeah that’s all in line with what I got.” She slid him an opened folder and started to explain everything in the simplest terms possible, like she did for her clients. “He’s been operating in the New York area for a couple decades at least. Looks like he and Fisk managed to mostly stay out of each other’s way with whatever truces or agreements they came up with, but they’re not allied. Plus, the yacht thing.”

“Yeah,” said Castle absently, poring over the contents of the folder. It was mostly reports about organized crime which had occurred within the past ten years, though it needed trained scrutiny to find the connections that pinned everything to Wake. “My buddy pulled up this same kinda shit, but nothing recent enough to track down those assholes you got last night. How’d you do it?”

It was a few minutes before ten. Probably too early for a drink. She sighed and pulled the folder back toward herself. “They weren’t with Wake. His big project right now is just the fake Punisher revolving door. With Fisk out of the picture he’s taking out all the small-time competition, putting the blame on you so whoever’s left is gonna be too scared to join any gang he doesn’t control. And it looks like it’s pretty much working, so far. Most of what I found on him came from what his enemies had stashed away; they’re trying to find his weaknesses.”

Castle frowned. “So who kidnapped Karen?”

Of course that would be the only thing on his mind. She leaned on the counter, turned halfway to look at him. “Javelin.”

“Yeah?” he pressed, impatience in his voice. “Who’s Javelin and how do I get to them?”

“I don’t know.”

He muttered a curse, exhaling loudly and pushing back from the counter. 

Jessica felt oddly sympathetic, even though he had just flashed her such a dirty look that you’d think she was the one who had threatened Karen instead of the one who had rescued her. “Yet,” she heard herself saying. “I don’t know who they are, yet.”

Castle’s expression didn’t become any happier -- if anything, there was an extra edge of tragedy in his eyes, but there was also an unexpected kindness. “What’s your story?” he asked in his sandpaper voice. “Is Karen paying you for this?”

“Dunno, is she? You could plant that idea in her head, I won’t mind.” She carded a hand through her hair, letting her eyes fall back onto the catalog of Wake’s crimes. “Look, a few years ago I got...trapped. Guy ruined my life, ruined a lot of lives, and, you know, he’s gone but there’s still always a guy out there ready to ruin another life. There’s always someone who gets trapped. I keep trying to forget about it but Trish and Karen both have this really obnoxious habit of making me care. So, whatever.” She swept her hand over the folder. “Let’s find this latest turd, see how much I manage to regret it this time.”

“Your parents know what you do?” asked Castle.

Jessica blinked. People didn’t usually ask about her family until they got to know her, and she was good at preventing that from happening very much. “They’re dead,” she said.

He showed no surprise. “Was it the guy?”

“No, it was before that, car accident, Christ, why are we talking about me? Thought this was about keeping Javelin off of Karen.”

“Yeah,” said Castle. “Yeah, that’s right. I’ll just shut my face, Miss Jones, and you go ahead and keep telling me anything you think I ought to know about this research you got.”

Something about his cadence had reminded her of her father, and she almost smiled. “Call me Miss Jones again and I’ll tell you what I think you should know about affordable prepaid burial plots.”

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Foggy got up to greet Karen as she came into his office, telling himself he should resist the urge to hug her in his relief at seeing her, until she initiated a hug of her own accord. There was definitely something troubling her, and definitely something she was hiding from him, and he couldn’t tell if they were the same thing. “Looked all over the place for you yesterday,” he said when they had released each other. “What happened?”

“Yeah, sorry,” she said, dropping into a chair. Her shoulder bag came down heavily on the floor beside her, like she had been carrying around too much weight for too long. “I’ve been trying to adopt this dog and it’s turning into a real bureaucratic nightmare. I just came from there and they bumped my application back again.”

“Okay, that’s...not what I was expecting.” Foggy shut the office door, then sat down with her. 

“I know. Call it a weird coping mechanism, but I’m really set on this dog. But thanks for letting me come here.”

“I’m the one who’s been trying to reach you since yesterday, remember?”

Karen nodded, after a brief startled pause that suggested she hadn’t actually remembered. “What did you want to talk about?”

The picture that Jessica had given him was in his desk, and he nearly brought it out and put it in front of her, but there was that something that was troubling her, and it was more than just the animal shelter. She seemed haggard and restive, and he couldn’t give her any new sources of worry until he understood. “What did _you_ want to talk about?” he replied.

There was a pause, during which Karen looked vaguely guilty. Foggy remembered all the times he had seen that look before, and braced himself, but Karen began innocuously enough: “We found the man behind the fake Punishers. Donovan Wake. Jessica’s been researching, trying to find me something I can print to expose him, but there’s one thing that came up that I wanted to get your take on.” She frowned deeply, closing her eyes for a moment before continuing. “Most of his rap sheet is the kind of corruption and organized crime you expect from the rich guys who don’t get their own hands dirty, but he also had dealings with human traffickers. The Russians that were working with Fisk two years ago?”

Foggy nodded, full of too many questions to narrow his choice down to anything but prompting her to go on. “So this Wake guy was profiting off them too?”

“No,” said Karen. “He was a _customer._ There’s a record of him making a purchase that corresponds with a missing person report for a girl who disappeared from her home in New Jersey in 2012.” Her voice became throttled with outrage. “She was thirteen.”

“Okay, Karen, wait. Before we get any further, you have to tell me what you want from me here. Am I in this in as a lawyer, or are you just here for some off-the-record counsel?” 

Karen steadied herself before answering, but she still looked to be near tears. “I guess I just needed a friend.”


	14. She Sees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You want Kastle? I give you Kastle. It's got coffee, it's got dogs, it's got really intense conversation and a harebrained scheme to use gunfire for an ultimately good cause.
> 
> But first, it's time to check in with Matt.

Matt plugged his earbuds into the laptop, fervently missing his refreshable braille display device and knowing he had no chance of getting a new one. The computer he was using belonged to St. John of the Cross, and it was just barely powerful enough to handle the software for the visually impaired that had been installed when it was assigned for his personal usage. He couldn’t ask Father Lantom for more than this.

The priest was approaching his door now, and Matt removed the earbuds and said “Come in,” before the knock landed. It was just as well that he hadn’t gotten started on anything yet. His current research was as much about killing time was it was about planning his next move.

“I’ve got today’s papers,” said Father Lantom, stepping into the room without remarking on Matt’s preemptive invitation. “I could read you the headlines, see if there’s anything you want to hear more about.”

“No thanks,” said Matt politely. “I can go through the online editions on my own.” He paused, then added, “Unless you saw something you think I should check out?”

“Another witness who swears he saw Daredevil fighting the Punisher. I know what you’re going to say, but even rumors are rooted somewhere. It would be good to find out where this one came from.”

Matt shook his head, as baffled by the report as he had been last time he had heard it. “It’s true Frank Castle is active again, I heard his voice, but I haven’t engaged with him. I didn’t even let him see me.” Sneaky as Castle could be, he was sure about it this time. He had kept well clear of the other man’s line of sight.

Father Lantom gestured with the papers, a dispirited motion. “Well, that’s it for what I think you should check out, then.”

“I’m going to get some answers, Father.” He felt compelled to say it, even though they had been through all this before. “I’ll find out where Javelin is hiding, but first I need to know what Castle is up to.”

“The world is full of mysteries, Matthew. I for one would still like to know who fixed my espresso machine.” 

Matt cracked a smile. “If they try to break in for more stealth repair jobs, this time I’ll be here to catch them in the act.”

“You will, won’t you?” The old man folded up the newspapers and tucked them under his arm. “All these nights without even asking when your suit will be ready. I’d have thought you’d be restless by now.”

“I am,” Matt admitted easily, drumming his fingers on the desktop. “But I promised Claire.” Claire had been back once since then, checking up on his recovery and making it clear that no part of it was a social call. She wouldn’t tell him much about how his friends were doing, except that they were alive and not in any danger beyond their usual. 

He wasn’t about to lose hope for mending all of those bridges, but for now it seemed best to wait for Claire to bring it up, and she probably wouldn’t do that until after she let him off his medical leave. He missed her, though. “Have you heard from her, by the way?” he asked Father Lantom.

The priest shook his head. “No, but I do have a visitor for you, if you feel up to it.”

Instantly Matt tensed in his seat, snatching up his glasses from the desk as if they were the only thing that could save him from the peril of a sudden stranger about to materialize in the room. Aside from Claire, everyone who knew he was here was affiliated with the church. Who could Father Lantom have brought to him?

“Don’t panic,” Father Lantom said dryly. “It’s Betsy. Your friend Mr. Potter got so worried about you when he saw the state of your suit that she marched right up to me and demanded to know why Daredevil was causing her Melvin so much trouble.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That Daredevil was on leave. And that, by the way, the software she found for our visually impaired tenant was working fine and very much appreciated.” He gestured over his shoulder. “She’s in the kitchen sorting out donations. Why don’t you join us in there when you’re ready?”

Matt could only say, “Oh.” He had heard Betsy’s voice in various parts of the church property, and knew that she attended the ten-thirty Mass and volunteered here for more than just running Melvin’s messages and deliveries. It had never occurred to him that he was free to meet her in person. Or that he had something to thank her for.

He made his way to the kitchen a few minutes after Father Lantom did, and held out his hand for Betsy to shake. She was tall and wide but moved with a measure of lightness he wouldn’t have expected, and her voice was soft and sweet. “Hi Matthew. Father told me about you and it sounded like you probably get lonely here sometimes, so I thought I should say hello.”

The three of them sat and talked, pleasantly enough that the time started to slip away. It was true, apparently, that Matt had needed company. In addition, he realized quickly that Betsy was a good source of information about current happenings in Hell’s Kitchen, and he didn’t even have to steer her into the topics he wanted to hear about. She knew that he knew that Daredevil had a connection to St. John of the Cross, so she didn’t try to conceal her involvement in keeping his suit maintained. 

“I wish he wouldn’t fight the other vigilantes, though,” she remarked, examining a child-sized shirt and then folding it up and placing it into one of her open boxes. “The Punisher is really dangerous, that’s what I heard.”

Matt held his tongue, but Father Lantom interjected gently, “Don’t forget, Betsy, there has been talk of men impersonating both Daredevil and the Punisher.” 

Betsy shook her head. “People described the devil suit and it couldn’t have been anyone but him. Maybe the other one was an impersonator, though.”

“Well,” said Father Lantom, “I’ll have to ask Daredevil if he’s been fighting any counterfeit Punishers.”

That was a good cap on a subject that Matt thought they should definitely move away from, but before he could find a way to organically change the subject, Betsy finished folding another garment and said, “There’s no eye holes in the helmet.”

Matt’s head jerked up. “What?”

She reached for another shirt. “On Daredevil’s suit. The eyes are hard plastic. You can see through them, but not well. Especially at night. Seems to me like Daredevil has some way of seeing that doesn’t use his eyes. Seems to me like if he was fighting someone who was dressed up like the Punisher, he wouldn’t even know it.”

Did she know? Her heartbeat was steady and she wasn’t acting like someone guarding a secret, but all this talk about Daredevil and the Punisher couldn’t be a complete coincidence. He had to trust her, there was no other choice, but his mind was racing.

One thing was clear: she was right. He had almost definitely been fighting a fake Punisher at some point. How had he not thought of this?

Father Lantom was over at the espresso machine again. Under his breath, he spoke for Matt alone: “Well, I feel half an idiot now.”

//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

A cup of coffee in each hand, Frank spotted the front entrance to Hell’s Kittens from a block away, and then saw Karen emerging before he had reached it. He hadn’t tried to time it that way, but this was good; he wouldn’t have to go inside and talk to anyone but her.

She was holding the leash of a hefty black and white dog, which took a few steps backward and sat down when Karen saw Frank and stopped walking. He couldn’t quite read the expression on her face even when he was close enough, although he sensed some dismay. That hurt, which surprised him: it was a rare occurrence for anyone to be happy to see Frank Castle, and dismay was usually just the beginning, so it wasn’t like he wasn’t used to this. But then, Karen was an exception to all the standard rules.

“Hey,” he said, holding out one of the cups.

“Hi,” she said, taking it with a tentative hand.

Frank had been bracing himself for a rejection of his offering, so that boosted his spirits a little. He took a sip from his own coffee and gestured toward the mutt behind her legs. “This the dog?”

Karen looked like she had to consider the answer to that, for some reason. “I’m adopting her, yeah. Can’t take her home while I’m still sleeping at Trish’s place, though, so I’m just dropping by every day to walk her.” She wrapped the loose end of the leash around her hand and took a look around herself. “So, you came looking for me to hand off an extra coffee, or...?”

“Came looking for you ‘cause you been avoiding me, and I wanna know why.”

She dropped her eyes. “Want to come with us, then?”

Frank inclined his head. “Yeah, I do.”

There was a light breeze in the air, but the sun stayed overhead as Karen led the way into the park adjacent to the shelter. The dog, which Karen called Sicily, pulled and bit at the leash and showed no affection or joy at all, and finally Frank broke the relative silence they had been maintaining to ask her, “Why this one?”

“She needs me,” Karen explained quietly. “She’s got a good dog somewhere inside. I can see improvement already, I mean, she hasn’t shown any aggression since that first time.”

“First--? Ah, shit, Karen, this is the one that bit you? What the hell’s going through your head?” He let out an angry breath, and Sicily huffed and stepped on his foot as if she had understood.

They had reached a quiet corner of the park, with room beside the path for them to stand and argue in hushed tones, which Karen wasted no time in doing. “Frank. Have you ever wondered why I wanted Nelson & Murdock to represent you? Back when all I knew about you came from the hospital and the news?”

Taken off guard, Frank could only shake his head and wait for the rest. Of course he had wondered, but he had also accepted Karen’s blazing heart as an untouchable thing beyond his comprehension. The idea of these questions having answers, which he would hear, was startling and new.

“Because I don’t believe in the death penalty,” said Karen. “I heard they wanted to have you executed and I knew I had a shot at doing something about it. Every day since then I’ve had to face the irony in that, and I’ve never really come any closer to knowing how to justify it to myself. I did what I had to, I don’t regret it, but every person you’ve killed since then...that’s on you, but it’s on me too. That’s where not believing in the death penalty brought me.”

“No,” Frank protested softly, reaching for her face but letting his hand drop before touching her. “Karen, no.”

She shook her head in a rejection of his disavowal. “For as long as we weren’t seeing each other, I didn’t have to make these choices. Now it’s all happening again. There’s men out there who need to be brought to justice, but if I tell you what I know, am I ordering another execution? How do I get through this without more blood on my hands?”

There was a burning silence before Frank broke it to her: “You don’t have to tell me what you know. I got the location already, the names, the whole backstory on Wake.” He let her take that in before adding, “So that’s why you didn’t wanna see me. Gotta admit, I coulda been moving on this a lot faster if you weren’t shutting me out, so I guess you knew what you were doing.”

“I did,” Karen asserted. “You weren’t the right man for the job.”

“Just tell me one thing, Karen. Do you really know who you’re up against? You know what Donovan Wake has done?”

Her anger flared up all at once, visibly enough that the dog at her heels looked up in alarm. “He killed and he destroyed lives and he tore a teenage girl away from her family and made her into his personal slave. Leigh Ericson. I saw her name and now I couldn’t forget it if I tried. Donovan Wake is the scum of the earth and he does deserve to die, Frank. I know that. But I’m not the one who gets to decide, and neither are you.” She seemed to deflate a little, and doubt crept into her voice as she dropped into a crouch to give Sicily’s ears a scratch. “Maybe I don’t even really believe that. Maybe I just wish I did. Whatever choice I make now, though, it’s going to be with me forever, so I think I better err on the side of life. Even if the only one I end up saving is this grumpy bitch who doesn’t even like me.” 

Frank tried to meet her eyes and ended up staring at the dog instead, loathing it but now somehow forced to consider whether he would put it down if it were up to him. Maybe Karen was right, and enough kind treatment and skilled training could turn the animal into a lovable pet. Dogs could change. Not like people. 

“I’ll take the leash for a little while,” he said, holding out his hand for it. He had finished his coffee and tossed the cup in the last trash can they had passed, but between talking and wrangling the dog, Karen had barely taken a sip. She blinked up at him, then straightened and wordlessly handed over the leash, and they kept walking together down the path.

Sicily was at first just as obstinate with Frank as she had been with Karen, but she sensed and accepted his dominance more quickly, and soon he was able to devote the greater part of his attention to Karen again. “Listen, hey,” he said in a low voice. “David went through a good ten years of Wake’s personal history. He knows how to get me into the yacht, how many guards are gonna be between me and the bedroom, yeah, but he also knows who the victims are and what happened to ‘em. Leigh Ericson? He pulled that name up real easy.” 

She was looking at him sidelong, quizzically, as if he were tearing open her wounds and she wanted to know why before she asked him to stop. The park was still fairly empty, but whenever they passed someone on the path, Frank would stop talking and Karen would drop her eyes to the ground as if she had something to be ashamed of.

“Karen.” He stopped walking, abruptly enough to confuse Sicily into stumbling, but he had to be facing Karen to say this. “Leigh Ericson’s alive. David’s sure about it. Wake’s got her on that yacht, but she’s alive, and we can find her.”

The blue of her eyes seemed to expand, taking in some of the sky to help contain her astonishment. “Oh God…”

“He’s not gonna just let her go if we ask nicely. This is gonna mean leaving bodies behind, there ain’t any way around that. But if you give it the nod, I go in there and end all this. As a rescue. Not as an execution.”

Her eyes remained wide as she inhaled sharply and asked, “And this is...up to me? You’re waiting on my nod?”

Frank kept his voice even. “Yes I am.”

For Karen that seemed to break the spell. She even forced out a little laugh as she shook her head, golden hair waving around her. “For a moment there I had this crazy idea to put a condition on it. To tell you I wasn’t going to approve unless I was part of the rescue. But that’s…”

He cleared his throat and gave her the rest of it in a grim tone. “Actually, I don’t think I can do it without you.”

“What?” Her mouth formed the word, but there was barely enough sound in it to be audible.

“That girl’s for sure been through hell for the past few years. We gotta think about the state she’s gonna be in when we find her. Ain’t gonna go well if the first thing she sees is…” He indicated himself and let Karen complete the sentence in her head. There were plenty of phrases that would fit. Frank Castle. A heavily armed stranger wearing the image of a skull. A man, any man at all. 

Karen didn’t say any of those things, but it was clear she was connecting dots and drawing mental maps. “So I can calm her down. Walk her out to safety. And I can call the cops without letting them get near you.”

“Yeah.” Now that the plan was beginning to form, Frank felt nervous. He trusted Karen’s competence and respected her right to make this decision for herself, but he was still going to be putting her in danger and that wasn’t something he could ever take lightly. “Karen, listen to me. I need you to swear. You go in there with me, I have to be absolutely sure you’re gonna do what I say. No asking questions, no taking initiative. For as long as we’re on that boat, I’m in charge. That work for you?”

To her credit, she considered it carefully before answering. Frank was sure there was a part of her that objected on principle to being asked to obey without question, but she knew that she wasn’t a soldier, and that giving him total control of the mission was the only substitute for the training she lacked. “That works for me,” she stated.

“Good. Then Leigh Ericson’s going home.” He gave the leash a light tug to get the attention of the dog, who had lain down by his feet and now shook herself as she stood and looked up expectantly. “Good girl,” he told her, and noticed that for some reason that put a smile on Karen’s face. He handed the leash back to her anyway. “Here. I ain’t in charge right now.”

For the duration of the walk back to Hell’s Kittens, they talked about Sicily, and about Jessica and Trish. Very briefly, the names of Lisa and Frank Jr. came up, and Karen’s empathy was radiant on her face.

She would be happier, more at ease, once they had rescued the girl. That would have been reason enough on its own to do it, but it was also the event that would make her go back to avoiding Frank. His every step through the park was weighted with regret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick rant: I started writing this story before there was a canon Betsy, of course, and I'm not going to change the one I invented now that she's shown up in S3. But frankly, I like mine better. There are plenty of smart, competent, attractive women in both the MCU and the real world -- Betsy was special because she was special to _Melvin_ , as he was to her. 
> 
> He's the kind of guy who would idolize someone because "She's nice. She helps me when I get confused." Those are genuine, worthwhile qualities that get overlooked by most people, just like most people would overlook Melvin because he gets confused. He does the right thing when he uses his skills to find protection for her, but there's an implication there that she needs protection. She's not a cop. She's not a beauty. She's just a good, good person who cares about her dorky unpolished platonic soulmate, and he's a good person who sees that and has the wisdom to cherish it over all else.


End file.
